ohamed Bourouissa was still an art student in 2004 when he took his first photographs of young people, mostly his male friends from the banlieues, or suburbs, of Paris. He had wanted to represent their particular sartorial aesthetic. At the time, the Parisian transportation system was laid out such that the easiest way for kids living in different banlieues to meet was to take the direct train to Chatelet–Les Halles in the center of the city. On arrival, their dynamic style—a lot of brightly colored athletic wear—stood out among the drab but formal uniform of— second or third-generation French youth whose families were from the former colonies—though no one really articulated these distinct identities at the time.
