Street style after hours is its own genre. Bear witness with Nichelle Dailey

The style gods of Los Angeles walk among us after the sun goes down.

(Nichelle Dailey / For The Times)

Fashion metaphors are usually forward-facing.You’ve got to look the part. Dress for the role you wish to inhabit. Style is a means to an end — a goal. An ambition. A designation or title. A reward. Riches. Clout. But the style gods who walk among us pull fits not for a desired job or salary; they do so as a statement of who they desire to be as they make moves. They dress for where they are going.

Every style capital has its own personality, with interlocutors who make fashion decisions that play into the specific energy of their surroundings. Cities have unique ways of facilitating interactions, and residents choose to present themselves based on their relationships to the choreography of the day. The New Yorker leaves the house dressed like they’re ready for anything. An Angeleno gets ready with the light in mind.

The drip on display in Los Angeles crescendos as the day goes on. It’s not as the outsiders and carpetbaggers understand it — all Uggs and tumblers and athleisure all the the time. You can feel style evade categorization as the day progresses. Then, at 3:32 p.m., the temperature begins to shift. That little nip in the air is the signal that the fashun is quickly approaching.

Style in the after hours is its own genre. With that in mind, we asked photographer Nichelle Dailey if she could head outside to document people as they get active during nights out on the town. Dailey has a way of bringing a subject’s essence to the fore. Her lens is tapped into — and pulls out — what’s within with remarkable clarity.

Her street style shots in this photo essay reveal the unique character of style at night. She’s showing it to us in all its luminosity. — The editors