Meeting Bill Cunningham

Hi, remember that exciting thing I mentioned earlier? Well I was referring my meeting with Bill Cunningham at the New York Times. I’ll tell you all about it. But be warned it’s a ridiculously long story, and you’ll have to take it from me: it’s worth the read.

This whole meeting stuff came to be thanks to John Kurdewan, Bill’s right hand. I told you about John here, and when this trip to NY came up I sent him an email. Mainly to get together for a cup of coffee so I could personally thank him for the signed newspaper. I asked him if it was possible to visit their editorial department, not only their office but the entire office building of The New York Times fascinates me. That newspaper is an incredible institution and even though I don’t read it on a daily basis (or weekly basis for that matter) it gets my little journalistic heart beating a lot faster.

John responded very quickly, of course I could:” anything for you.” I started bouncing through life since that day, I mean, man, The New York Times. In 2011 a documentary was made about this paper; Page One: Inside The New York Times, I saw it on IDFA, and even if it wasn’t the best or most revealing, what did become clear was the enormous amount of history and influence bound to the newspaper, something I really wanted to see up close.

And so it happened. Yesterday morning around 10.30 I walked, my knees shaking, the 10 blocks from my hotel to the newspaper in the rain. The gigantic building rises high above it’s neighbors and the lobby houses the front desks of dozens of companies that all share the building. John came down and took me to his work spot. The office was abandoned as most people come in between noon an 3 pm and stay till around midnight, so John told me. He and Bill don’t, they simply start in the morning. John was just showing me around when Bill came in.

John had told me Bill could be a little held back as he doesn’t enjoy being in the spotlight. “ Just act normal and pretend you came to see me, he’ll come round.” And he did. “ Hi Bill. I’m John’s friend”, I said, then John showed him the page I was on and Bill remembered. “ Oh you’re the girl we met during fashion week!” From then on he was happy, sincerely sweet, funny and nice.

At this point I’m already totally starstruck and so impressed I miss a lot. We talk about the cold weather back then, today’s rain and how fun fashion week is and about the latest Met Ball, as they were there. Together with John I go through some raw footage they shot that night and it becomes clear why Bill is so famous and renowned. Honestly, technically speaking he might not be the best photographer, he doesn’t claim to be so himself, but he definitely has the best eye.

Every morning he walks the streets of New York and just looks. He looks and takes pictures and creates a page of trends, that, according to Anna Wintour, slip past the eyes of the American Vogue. That’s what the Met photo’s looked like. We usually see the polished red carpet pictures, with perfectly posed stars pouting and grinning. But Bill goes past that moment en searches for the human element. So you see Kim Kardashian with her eyes closed, Candice Swanepoel with a shinny forehead, Anna Wintour who is saying something, so has her mouth open, in short; all non-perfect poses, making the pictures and especially the people on them come alive, giving them their own faces instead of the ones make-up artists painted on them. And he can make these pictures by coming up real close, intimate almost, which he can do because everybody knows Bill. They are cheered by his presence and smile at his camera. Besides it’s not relevant to him if they look pretty; “it’s always and only about the fashion.”

Bill is standing next to us and for every photo of every dress he has a story. Not about the stars, btw, he doesn’t know them. On that night he took a picture of Miley Cyrus and Miley asked:”Just one?” to which he said: “Yes kid keep walking.” He later asked John: “Who was that? Was that Madonna?” About Katy Perry he said, “Is that one of those Kardashian kind of people?” He is totally oblivious to the big names that greet him with a smile, wanting him to take their picture, or be in a picture with him, like Linda Evangelista and of course his close friend Anna Wintour.

We sit there scrolling through his work for about an hour. After that John shows me around the entire office. We pass the news room, the fact checkers and even the executive floor with the boardroom and the room that says: “the owner of The New York Times.”

But we’re not done yet. After visiting the editorial department John asks me if I want to see “the archives”. For those of you who don’t know what they are: they’re Bill’s archives. They’re at his place, and every picture he ever, and I mean ever, took are in the archives. Every negative of fashion week, On The Street, events, everything. There are rows and rows of archive cabinets and cardboard boxes with texts that say things like: Paris Fashion Week 1973,” or “Milan Fashion Week 1965,” Really the history this man owns is flabbergasting.

And I was about to see it. In real life. John and I got into a taxi directing towards Central Park, Bill lives beside it. A gigantic apartment complex with a view of the park. Don’t assume Bill has a lot of money, he doesn’t. He lived above Carnegie Hall for 60 years , it held 133 rent controlled studios for artists and musicians. When in 2010, these were turned into classrooms he had to leave and together with 5 other tenants he was moved to a different rent controlled apartment building, the one we were heading to.

The elevator took us to the top floor and the door opened into a tiny apartment, that was indeed filled to the rim with archive cabinets. Somewhere in between them was a small mattress that he sleeps on. The second room was also filled with cabinets and the kitchen was unused (“Bill doesn’t know how to use the stove and he never, ever, cooks”). The only place without boxes was the bathroom. By the way there’s no wardrobe, a wiry dry cleaning hanger holds his iconic blue coat, there are some blue sweaters and that’s it.

I stand there looking around while John is messing around with the broken air conditioning and I just can’t believe this is happening. That I’m there, for real, in Bill Cunningham’s house where he goes to sleep every night and wakes up every morning. The whole morning John tells me about Bill, his work, their relationship, everything. The intense friendship between those two is heartwarmingly beautiful, where Bill goes, John goes. Because Bill is getting old, is turning deaf and overestimates his own physical capabilities all the time. John is there when he’s tired, when he forgets to eat again, to carry his camera and to make sure he isn’t continuously disturbed by everyone – this happens all the tim, because everyone is a fan of Bill. And Bill calls John every morning to see if he woke up on time, in the weekend he calls to see if everything is going well and that’s how they keep an eye on each other, continuously, and take care the other is well.

Whoever got this far, my thanks are sincere. I can tell you this has been the highlight of my entire life. I have never experienced anything this special and have never been so close to someone I admire. So be warned, I am going to brag about this non stop, until you get dead tired of it. But to use John’s words: “anything for Bill.”