"We all get dressed for Bill," says Vogue editrix Anna
Wintour. The "Bill" in question is 80+ New York Times photographer Bill
Cunningham. For decades, this Schwinn-riding cultural anthropologist
has been obsessively and inventively chronicling fashion trends and high
society charity soirées for the Times Style section in his columns "On
the Street" and "Evening Hours." Documenting uptown fixtures (Wintour,
Tom Wolfe, Brooke Astor, David Rockefeller-who all appear in the film
out of their love for Bill), downtown eccentrics and everyone in
between, Cunningham's enormous body of work is more reliable than any
catwalk as an expression of time, place and individual flair. In turn,
Bill Cunningham New York is a delicate, funny and often poignant
portrait of a dedicated artist whose only wealth is his own humanity and
unassuming grace.
