Photography legend Bill Cunningham passes away

Bill Cunningham, a New York Times fashion photographer who documented street style through several decades, died Saturday in New York, the newspaper announced. He was 87.

Cunningham had been hospitalised after a stroke earlier this week.

From bell bottoms to fanny packs and beyond, Cunningham immortalised not only the fashions of the moment, but the cultural shifts as they changed. As the Times puts it, the photographer became “an unlikely anthropologist” in his 40 years at the paper, as his street photos reflected a change from formality into more self-expressive trends.

Though he preferred not to photograph celebrities, but rather passing residents on the streets of Manhattan, Cunningham became something of a star himself in the fashion world. The French government honoured him with the Legion d'Honneur in Paris in 2008, and he was congratulated at Bergdorf Goodman in New York, where a life-size mannequin of him was installed.

He was also the subject of the critically acclaimed 2010 documentary “Bill Cunningham New York,” which premiered at the Museum of Modern Art.

Cunningham became a regular contributor to the Times in the late '70s, but refused to take a staff position until 1994, when he was hit by a truck while riding his bike. He later explained he took the staff position for health insurance, and stayed at the publication for years after.

“He was a hugely ethical journalist,” said Dean Baquet, the Times' executive editor. “And he was incredibly open-minded about fashion. To see a Bill Cunningham street spread was to see all of New York. Young people. Brown people. People who spent fortunes on fashion and people who just had a strut and knew how to put an outfit together out of what they had and what they found.”

Source: Variety