Delightful, enthusiastic, friendly, determined, shy, gentle, kind, generous. These are only a few words that describe Bill Cunningham, New York street photographer. Clothing was the thing that turned his head. He never tired of photographing the clothes that women wore. “The best fashion is on the street,” he said. “I love to document!”

Born in Boston in 1929, William J. Cunningham’s interest in fashion began at an early age. “I could never concentrate on Sunday church services because I’d be concentrating on women’s hats,” he said. At age 19, Cunningham moved to New York City and set up as a milliner. He was later drafted into the army for the Korean War and stationed in Paris, France. He loved Paris for its high fashion. Upon returning to New York, he continued making hats until 1962, when he merged his interests in fashion and photography to document the fashion of the day, including Diane Vreeland’s fashion exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

He found that fashion shows didn’t tell the whole story. “I realized that you didn’t know anything unless you photographed the shows and the street,” he said, “to see how people interpreted what designers hope they would buy… The street was the missing ingredient.” Shifting the lens from the catwalk to the street was a new approach and mostly due to Cunningham.

His story about Greta Garbo’s coat is telling. “I got to know Arthur Gelb [of the New York Times], and one day I told him about this woman I had been photographing on the street. She wore a Nutria coat, and I thought: “Look at the cut of that shoulder. It’s so beautiful.” And it was a plain coat, too… Anyway, I was taking her picture, and I saw people turn around, looking at her. She crossed the street, and I thought, Is that? Sure enough, it was Greta Garbo. All I had noticed was the coat and the shoulder.”