An Immersive Journey Celebrates a Famed Fashion Photographer’s Life and Work
For New Yorkers, fashion is a lifestyle, and the streets are the runway. But how to achieve true street style icon status? For decades, a Bill Cunningham snap was endorsement enough.
An integral part of New York City’s cultural fabric and a mainstay of its fashion scene, photographer Bill Cunningham captured style in all its forms. Experience the Times of Bill Cunningham brings the beloved documentarian’s career and keen eye to life with a range of dynamic experiences—from a grand staircase where guests’ outfits are digitally transformed into a one-of-a-kind fashion statement, to an evolving AI driven gallery that reveals the surprising matches between trends captured by Cunningham and today’s latest street styles.
Unfolding over two stories, 18,000-square-feet, and six distinct spaces, the multi-sensory event features dynamic libraries of Cunningham’s most iconic photos, video and audio interviews, artifacts like Cunningham’s iconic Biria bicycle and his trademark blue French worker’s jacket, and sounds that capture the energy of New York City’s streets.
Along the journey, guests can pose on a simulated electric city crosswalk where Cunningham took many of his photographs, or take a seat on a bench made of milk crates and a foam mattress—a nod to the photographer’s bed in his Carnegie Hall studio apartment.
I just think this exhibit is fabulous. You learn so much more about him, but also the fashion that was not obvious. It was creative, and different, and I loved everything I saw today.
Central to the exhibit is the grand staircase, evoking the earliest fashion shows, where models descended the steps of private homes to present new designs.
