New York Inspiration

Loved this look at my city through a TRUE NY-lover's eyes.

During my self-inflicted hermitage last Saturday and Sunday I finally got around to watching this documentary that had been in my Netflix queue for YEARS (and actually on my list of movies to see in the theater when it first came out in 2010). It's beautiful.

Bill Cunningham loves NY and he loves the street fashion he finds in NY even more. This film perfectly marries the gorgeous contradiction that is a man who sees fashion in everything and loves finding the new "it" look, with a man who for decades has been bicycling around the city wearing a $10 blue jacket with little to no personal life. He lives for his work ("My dear, it's not work, it's pleasure.") and never turns off his all-seeing "eye". It really is beautiful. He calls everyone "kid" or "child" ("oh, child!"), lives in a tiny corner apartment ("Who the hell wants a kitchen and a bathroom? Just more rooms to clean.") filled with filing cabinets holding every photo/negative he's ever taken in the AMAZING rent-controlled Carnegie Hall studios (RIP).

He lives meagerly and loves it because it allows him to work ("I don't work, I only know how to have fun everyday"). That's the most important thing to him. Not status, or money ("If you don't take money, they can't tell you what to do, kid. That's the key to this whole thing." and "Money is the cheapest thing. Freedom is the most expensive thing."), or food ("I eat with my eyes"). It's just about taking the photographs and laying them out (in his column) his way.

AND HE STILL SHOOTS WITH FILM! It's brilliant and so old school. Nothing has changed with him for decades. And it's perfect.

In his own words, "It's true today as it ever was, he who seeks beauty, will find it."