Bill Cunningham: New York Page #7

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the glass ceiling on Wall Street,

a socialite in New York...

who's an up-and-comer

and part of nouvelle society,

or an old Dutch or German family...

that is still in the last phases

of its denouement in Newport...

He doesn't care.

It's all, for him, the huge variety

of life in New York City.

[Man] When was the first

time Bill photographed you?

In 1986,

and the Times said...

He came to me the next week and

he said, "I'm so disappointed.

The Times said we can't put you in

because you're wearing a dress."

And he said, "But I'm going

to keep trying to get you in."

And I was like, "What the hell?

I'm wearing a pair

of workman's boots with that dress."

And he said, "I know Kenny,

but they won't put you in, but I'm trying."

And now, they put everything in.

He's such a maverick.

Really a maverick.

He means so much to people like us.

Really.

He's an artist.

We'll talk.

[Horns Honking]

[Loud Chattering]

You have two choices.

You can either have Jon Bon Jovi

give you the welcoming remarks...

and me doing the singing...

[Laughter]

Or the reverse.

Seriously, this is one

of the great jewels of New York.

It is great for the economy of this city.

It is great for the education of our kids.

It is great for everybody.

So you have a great evening tonight,

and thank you for all you're doing.

Thank you for your support

of this wonderful museum. God bless.

[Applause]

[John]

That's why I was going up with it.

[Bill]

Yes, like that. Yeah. That's nice.

Now let's put this one, a single

picture party, right in here.

Put this one down at the bottom,

this party, and put this one above it.

We'll see. We'll just...

Just put it on. Stop your antics.

Put it up there.

[Growling]

[Laughing]

Damn you kids!

I love this one. Scientists.

He must be quite a jokester.

He's a Nobel laureate

and so forth,

and he's teasing

the other scientist.

Look at this beautiful child,

but we have no room for her.

I think we need

someone new, young.

I didn't know who she was.

Just, I liked the way she looked.

The dress is terrific.

Asymmetric on the bias.

You never see that.

And it's not a model. That's a private

person that brought their own clothes.

I have the most beautiful

picture of Mrs. Bass.

She looks like

a John Singer Sargent portrait.

A what?

Absolutely ravishing.

Except, she's got a modesty bib

filling in the V-neckline.

What a crime.

That should have been...

I'm sure the dressmaker got timid.

You know, to fill it.

Isn't that a shame?

It should have been left open.

Look how elegant she is.

Oh, yeah.

Oh. That woman is amazing.

Uh, wasn't she in last week?

No. No.

Oh, no, you don't cut her arms.

Are you crazed?

Well, excuse me.

Keep her hands in.

My God, John.

Where's your sensitivity?

I mean, she's probably

the most elegant woman,

or one of the most elegant women,

in New York.

Oh, you wouldn't know.

What am I talking to you about that stuff?

[Chuckling] You're a lumberjack,

and here I'm talking dresses to you.

Are you talking to me?

I was completely ignoring you all that time.

Oh! Now stop it.

Turn that damn thing off.

[Interviewer] Bill, we're gonna hound you.

We're gonna hound you.

You've already done that.

Now stop it. [Laughter]

These guys are tough as nails.

They think they're taking over.

They're not taking over.

We're not.

I got news for them.

[Woman] Yeah.

[Laughing]

These jerks think

they're going to follow me to Paris.

Who are they kidding?

We are.

No, you're not.

##[Man Singing In French]

[Bill]

I didn't get to Paris till 1951.

##[Continues]

I was stationed

in the southwest of France.

I'd take the train up to Paris.

Of course,

it was very different from today.

They were only couture houses.

They were clothes

that gave women enormous security...

through the elegance of cut

and taste and refinement.

There was nothing

frivolous about them.

[Woman Speaking

French]

[Bill]

You see, when I began in the '40s,

there were no photographers

at fashion shows.

What the fashion houses had to do

was take their own photographs...

and bring them to the editors

to select something.

Then the ready-to-wear

came into existence in the...

in the end of the '60s,

beginning of the '70s, very slowly.

At Saint Laurent's

first ready-to-wear show,

I think there were maybe myself,

and maybe a Vogue photographer.

I mean, it didn't have this

fanatic following that it has now...

of all these manufacturers and

people that just would kill to get in...

because they need to steal ideas

for their own work.

So they let Paris

be the laboratory of ideas.

[Chattering]

The press entrance is that way,

so you have to ask them, unfortunately.

Nikki, should we go...

Just one person, huh?

Oh.

[Indistinct]

[Indistinct]

Nikki, um, I'll see you later.

[Bill]

Looking at these collections,

I look for what I think

a woman could wear, would wear,

and whether it would fit

a human body,

other than the model.

I'm very attuned to that.

If it isn't something a woman could

wear, I have no interest in it.

I've watched Bill photograph

from the front row,

and you can see when the camera goes up

or the camera stays down.

[Hastreiter]

And he's very opinionated.

He does not applaud

everyone.

He knows

what's innovative...

and what's borrowed or copied.

He knows if he sees someone, you know

, putting something on a runway...

if it was done, like,

30 years before.

And so he would pull it up.

Thirty years before,

and he'd show the picture and...

I mean, he got...

Designers would be devastated.

He once did that with Isaac Mizrahi.

He pulled up a Geoffrey Beene...

from like five years before

or something,

and Isaac was so mad, and even Geoffrey

Beene, I think, got mad at Isaac.

[Laughing] You know, it was like

he would definitely start trouble.

Not on purpose, but he would do...

He would definitely, like, point out,

like, if he saw something, he'd call it.

[Bill] The photographers at the

shows, they're all in the back,

so they get a clear photograph

with nothing disturbing.

They get a plain wall.

It's all fine.

But they're getting

everything straight on.

Well, fashion's not that way.

You have to know in an instant, "Oh, the

angle is this, and the detail is that. "

And it's not straight on.

I just like it on the side, so I

can get a front, a back, a profile...

or hopefully.

Most of the time I

miss it, but I try.

[Man] #I hear Jerusalem

bells are ringing #

#Roman cavalry choirs are singing #

#Be my mirror, my sword and shield #

#My missionaries in

a foreign field #

#For some reason I can't explain #

#Once you go there was never,

never an honest word #

#And that was when I

ruled the world ##

The wider world

that perceives fashion as a...

sometimes a frivolity

that should be done away with...

in the face of social upheavals

and problems that are enormous...

The point is, in fact, that fashion...

Um...

You know, in point of fact,

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