Bill Cunningham the King of Street Style Photography

Bill Cunningham can be spotted each fashion season by his signature Blue jacket and his silence. Ever wonder where all the street style photographers got there swag?  Well its from this man who quietly creeps up beside you on the streets of New York and Paris, if he thinks your out-fit is news worthy. I had one of this moments during NYC fashion week on his day of scouting yellow.

He dropped out of Harvard University in 1948 and moved to New York, where he initially worked in advertising. During his years as a writer, he contributed significantly to fashion journalism, introducing American audiences to Azzedine Alaïa and Jean-Paul Gaultier. While working at the Tribune and at Women’s Wear Daily, he began taking photographs of fashion on the streets of New York. As the result of a chance photograph of Greta Garbo, he published a group of his impromptu pictures in the Times in December 1978, which soon became a regular series.His editor, Arthur Gelb, has called these photographs “a turning point for the Times, because it was the first time the paper had run pictures of well-known people without getting their permission.”

Cunningham photographs people and the passing scene in the streets of Manhattan every day. Most of his pictures, he has said, are never published.Designer Oscar de la Renta has said, “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.”

In 2008 he was awarded the title Officier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.

In 2010, filmmaker Richard Press and Philip Gefter of The Times produced a documentary about Cunningham, his bicycle, and his , titled Bill Cunningham New York. The film was released on March 16, 2011.