It’s never good when you realize halfway through a book that its title is a big fat lie.

Nylon Street: The Nylon Book of Global Style purports to be a pictorial homage to the diverse fashion choices that give seven major cities—London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Melbourne, Copenhagen, and Berlin—very distinct identities. “[They] are setting the pace for the rest of the world,” writes Nylon magazine editor-in-chief Marvin Scott Jarrett in his foreword, also noting how inspired he’s been by “the unique energy of the cities. . . . Each place I’ve visited has a totally different look.”

If that’s true, then this book completely fails. Rather than encapsulating a cross-section of ages, social strata, and cultural identities—which is what we wanted it to do—Nylon Street instead sets up camp everywhere in the exact same myopic stereotype of What’s Hip and Alternative. “Global style,” according to this book, means “what people are wearing when they’re under-30 artists, fashion students, or musicians.” We refuse to believe the only way to know a city is to sit outside the nearest design school and photograph whomever drifts past. Where are the older men, the mothers, the kids? If you’re so fascinated by global style, why limit yourself to photos that not only strip the subjects of their cultural setting, but ignore the reality that every city is not populated solely by punk throwbacks wearing four different sweaters at once?

If you’ve managed to make what’s trendy in Tokyo look identical to what’s hip for Londoners, then you’ve utterly missed the mark. Nylon Street is an inch-thick ode to homogeny masquerading as a celebration of diversity. Snore.