Style hound: on the street with Bill Cunningham

ArtForum, March, 1996 by Guy Trebay

Cunningham's vast archive is housed in a studio apartment in Carnegie Hall that, says Stephen Gan, "is like living in one huge filing cabinet." Stored in the cabinet is a secreted record of fashion for at least the last 30 years. Cunningham wants no attention. He has refused for years to publish a book or be interviewed.

"No one knows what he'll do with it all," says Morris. "God forbid the pictures get lost." Not long after I spent the day following Cunningham around, I ran into him outside the Bryant Park Cafe. He was we making small talk with three young modeling hopefuls seated on a bench. When I approached him, he immediately recoiled. As I explained my wish to write about him, his face got red and he began to back away. "Oh, no! No. no. no!" he said. "I'm totally against publicity. Oh, no, no! It's the destruction everything."