I love you Bill Cunningham!

Posted by Weeks on February 3, 2015 in Love | 3 Comments

My fashion hero is an 85 year old man who wears the blue utility jackets favored by French street cleaners. He is Bill Cunningham of the New York Times. It’s not just Bill Cunningham’s wonderful photos of stylish New Yorkers taken from biking around Manhattan that captivates me. It’s his perfection. I’ve learned so much about color and composition from gazing endlessly at his photos. No one else will ever be able to do his job and everyone who ever tries will be compared unfavorably to him. So if you’re thinking about taking over his job when he’s gone, you’re in for failure by comparison. In the past few years, Bill has been expanding beyond his printed pieces in the Times to short videos on the Times website. These videos are endlessly charming because you get to hear this immensely knowledgeable old man wax on about everything from cravats to Bermuda shorts. Mostly I love Bill Cunningham’s lifelong enthusiasm for his work. In fact when I watch his delightful video essays I feel that I must savor them like a great piece of dark chocolate at the end of a meal that will too quickly melt away. [Note: if you’ve never seen it, find the delightful and moving documentary about Bill Cunningham.]