Fashionable ascent. Memories of the first strittstil photographer

About the book
For Bill Cunningham New York was the city of Freedom, Glamura, and most importantly, style. He grew up in the degree of the Irish suburb of Boston, spent evenings, looking at the windows of the most chic boutiques in the city and dreamed of devoting his life to fashion. But the family perceived his hobby as something shameful, and, having quit his studies at Harvard, Bill began to win his right to do what he loves.

Having arrived in New York, he began to observe people. This brought him the greatest pleasure. He spent evenings on opera premieres and penetrated without an invitation to luxurious balls, studied how dresses behave in motion, how jewelry hangs, how the guests" hair was laid. This became his education, so his democratic taste and unbridled vitality formed that glorified him in the era of work by the photographer "New York Times". Bill took two icons of style under the wing, he reached a creative heyday and became a famous designer. Taking the pseudonym "William J." - In order not to dishonor parents, Bill became one of the most original and famous hat designers of his era. These were serene days when fashion was for him. Hungry, without a penny behind his soul, he wandered past the windows on the fifth Avenue, and beautiful things replaced his food.

Canningham memoirs are the story of a young man who seeks to fulfill his destiny, to become who he was destined to become at birth: a true original. Although Bill was one of the most beloved New York characters, almost nothing is known about his private life. This book, neatly printed on a typewriter, was kept at his house all his life. He was in no hurry to share her - and himself - until his death. On these pages is the history of the formation in the world of fashion, a colorful story about secular society, as it was once, and the last gift to us from one of the symbols of New York.

About the author
Bill Cunningham - the cult photographer The New York Times, led in the newspaper the columns "on the street" and "Evening hours". Bill professionally took up the photograph while working in the Women"s Wear Daily and Chicago Tribune newspaper, and in the late 1970s began to regularly cooperate with The New York Times. Cunningham was an outstanding character on the streets of New York, and in 2009 he was even called a “live monument”.

Sisters dress my first memory of fashion - the day when my mother found me, four -year -old, defiling around the house in the best dress of my sister. That summer day of 1933, my mother pressed me against the wall of the living room and beat me to half to death, threatening to break all the bones in my body that did not yet know the prohibitions. Taste and style taste is not limited to one style. You can dress with taste gorgeous, like a Hollywood star. And you can taste the apron with a servant. The taste is constant, the style changes from season to season. The shameful profession of the brilliance of New York overshadowed living with Harrington. My uncle and cousins ​​were ashamed to tell my friends that I wanted to become a designer and sew women"s dresses. Aunt retained neutrality, stating that everyone has the right to do the chosen business, since this is pleasing to the Lord Almighty. I was always delighted with this quick change of mood in the fashion industry: today we are soft as a feather, and tomorrow is hard as a brick, today we chime, dear, and tomorrow we will bring down the heads of the “road” all the anger. Army in flowers in the camp I was a camouflage star. On my helmet, a stunning small garden made of flowers and grass flaunted. I remember how my appearance annoyed the sergeant, because my magnificent headdress in the middle of the desert bloomed like the Eden garden, and our disguised detachment should have sneaked imperceptibly. Fashion and its rules in fashion have only one rule, which should not be forgotten by either customers or designers: when it starts to seem to you that you all know and have caught the spirit of time, forget about everything you learned at that very second, turn it over this From the head to the head, find a new application of the old formula