(Bill Cunningham in a scene from a documentary about him. Zeitgeist Films)
Before the The Sartorialist, before Tommy Ton, before Garance Doré and before a universe of bloggers documenting style on the streets, there was Bill Cunningham.
The 82-year-old photographer has been chronicling fashion in real life since the 1960s with an obsessive purity of purpose.
In Bill Cunningham New York, a charming documentary by Richard Press, we learn that purpose is the pursuit of style in its many guises: the eccentric, the trendy, the beautiful.
What sets Cunningham apart, aside from his singularity of purpose, is his incorruptibility. He has adopted a uniform, the blue smock of Parisian street sweepers and does not stray from it. He travels by bicycle, and has had 28 of them stolen over the years. He has two columns for the Times, On the Street and Evening Hours, the latter of which is a document of charity affairs. He does not take even a glass of water at these events, and he does not bow to society or to celebrity. He also works the runway circuit, snapping both the front row and outsiders with equal curiosity and delight.
“We all get dressed for Bill,” Vogue editor Anna Wintour says in the film.
The film opens Friday, April 29, at Cinema du Parc.
Montreal blogger Lolitta Dandoy, always the subject of interest for style on the street herself, organized a viewing for fashion folks and public, after persuading the Parc to bring the film to Montreal.
Here are some of the characters that showed at the Montreal viewing.
(Julia Zhu in vintage dress, Aldo shoes, at Cinema du Parc. Photos Vincenzo d’Alto.)
(Melanie Brisson in vintage jacket, Marc Jacobs bag.)
(Lolitta Dandoy in vintage pink jacket, Sonia Rykiel for H&M top and Halston pants.)
