*Updated by Adorama author Frank Walker on June 26, 2016 – We originally reported that legendary street style photographer and fashion circle insider Bill Cunningham was recovering after suffering a stroke last week. However, the iconic photographer passed away yesterday.
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Bill Cunningham, who just passed away after a stroke at the age of 87, was a lot more than a great fashion photographer with a unique gift for integrating the refined world of fashion with the energy and dynamism of the street. He was beloved by all those who knew him for his genuine humility and heartfelt empathy that transformed the highly competitive, often self-consumed world of fashion and humanized it with an often whimsical and down-to-earth visual interpretation of the latest fashion trends. His powers of observation were phenomenal and he was supremely attuned to the ever-changing world of fashion, which he regarded as an everyday form of human expression. As a result, he was often the first to reveal emerging fashion trends, such as the Spring proliferation of wide-brimmed felt hats, which he documented with his signature grace, charm, and humor by taking pictures of women trying to hold onto their hats near the Flatiron building on the windy corner of 5th Avenue and 23rd Street in New York. Perhaps most important, Cunningham had had a great eye for composition and the uncanny ability to capture magical moments on the street that combine the refinement of a consummate fashion shooter with the engaging spontaneity of a master street photographer. To say that he was one of a kind is an understatement, and his irrepressible warmth, charm, and unique take on fashion will surely be missed by his legions of admirers worldwide.
Cunningham spent nearly 40 years working for the New York Times, and his brilliant double-page spreads were a fixture of the Style Section. In a fitting tribute in his Times obituary he was described as an “unlikely cultural anthropologist”—a clear indication that his work transcended the fashion genre and rose to the level of fine art. He will be remembered by many New Yorkers as a spry-looking elderly gentleman pedaling through the streets on his bicycle wearing has trademark blue jacket, sporting a gray cap, and with a black camera bag slung over his shoulder. And New York Mayor Bill de Blasio commented, “We will remember the vivid, vivacious New York he captured in his photos.” Despite his connections to the elite of the fashion world, he lived modestly and ate a simple breakfast every day at the local deli. He also had a habit of tearing up some of the checks he received, and when asked why, he tellingly replied, “Money’s the cheapest thing. Liberty and freedom is the most expensive.”
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The seemingly inexhaustible photographer was born in 1929 into an Irish-Catholic family, raised in Boston, and had his first exposure to fashion as a stock-boy in Bonwit Teller’s Boston Store. After briefly attending Harvard, he dropped out, and moved to New York in 1948 at the age of 19 where he worked again for Bonwit Teller in the advertising department. Not long afterward, he struck out on his own, making hats under the name William J. His clients included Marilyn Monroe, Katharine Hepburn and future First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier. He was drafted during the Korean War, and stationed in France, where he had his first exposure to French fashion. After his tour of duty he returned to New York as a milliner, and a New York Times critic praised his chapeaux as “some of the most extraordinarily pretty cocktail hats ever imagined.” Encouraged by his high society clients he began writing, first for Women’s Wear Daily, then for the Chicago Tribune where he began taking candid fashion photographs on the streets of New York.
The great fashion designer Oscar de la Renta said of Cunningham, “More than anyone else in the city he has the whole visual history if the last 40-50 years of New York. It’s the total scope of fashion in the life of New York.” The French government warded Bill Cunningham the coveted Legion d’Honneur for his work, and he was named a Living Landmark by the New York Landmarks Conservancy. Perhaps the most heartfelt tribute of all came from New York Times Chairman Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, who remarked, “His company was sought by the fashion world’s rich and powerful, yet he remained one of the kindest, most gentle, and humble people I have ever met. We have lost a legend, and I am personally heartbroken to have lost a friend.”
Below is our original report on Bill Cunningham, that appeared on June 24th:
For the first time in decades, Bill Cunningham’s photos were missing in this past Sunday’s New York Times Fashion and Style section as the 87-year-old recuperates from a stroke. Cunnigham’s presence in the fashion world and his documentary photos have become an iconic part of New York culture, partly due to his ubiquitous presence at every major fashion event and gala in New York.
The octogenarian has become a legend thanks to both his street style photos featuring non-celebrities as well as his high-society event photos featuring fashion’s most powerful players, most of whom have nothing but admiration for his role in documenting the culture of fashion. Despite his hobnobbing with some of the industry’s most important insiders, Cunningham keeps a humble profile, as he is regularly seen pedaling around the streets of New York City on a Schwinn bicycle, camera-ready to document the latest trends in fashion. The subject of a 2010 documentary, Bill Cunningham New York, Bill’s influence in the fashion world is unmistakable as even Anna Wintour declared in the film, “I have said many times that we all get dressed for Bill.”
For almost forty years, Cunninghman seemed unstoppable, never missing a beat in the fashion world – even last year when the senior citizen broke a kneecap in a biking accident. After being outfitted with a full leg cast and picking up a cane, Bill was back at it again, attending the Mostly Mozart Festival opening-night gala.
Thanks to his colorful commentary features in NYT’s On the Street on everything from Kanye West’s ripped jeans at the MET gala, to highlighting the bare shoulder trend, many notables in the fashion industry believe that Bill’s work is as important as the fashion itself. In a 2002 New York Times article, designer Oscar de la Renta said of Cunningham, “More than anyone else in the city, he has the whole visual history of the last 40 or 50 years of New York. It’s the total scope of fashion in the life of New York.”
While his dedicated fans and fashionistas will have to wait for the next installment of Cunningham’s regular feature, On the Street, many reports say Bill is expected to make a speedy recovery.
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