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"  Photo: Getty New York Fashion Week officially kicks off today, which means the next few days will be all about shows, presentations, and parties\u2014and all the carefully composed outfits captured by street style photographers. But long before fashion bloggers, The Sartorialist, and New York Fashion Week itself, Bill Cunningham was biking around Manhattan in his signature blue windbreaker, with camera in tow, documenting the daily outfits of New York City women. And readers around the world have had the pleasure of viewing these iconic images in The New York Times &amp;quot;Sunday Styles&amp;quot; section since 1978, as part of Cunningham&amp;#039;s weekly &amp;quot;On the Street&amp;quot; column. Of course, the glossy version of street style that we&amp;#039;ve come to see as the norm has veered quite a ways from Cunningham&amp;#039;s own definition. The images that still grace the Sunday Times every week are un-Photoshopped, truly authentic snapshots of life and style in New York City\u2014a far cry from the exquisitely posed peacocking that has become the Fashion Week (and style blog) mise-en-sc\u00E8ne. The now 85-year-old Cunningham is known for running into intersections and weaving through crowds of tourists to capture his pictures, and it stands to reason that many of his subjects never expected to be photographed when they left their homes that morning. So, it only seemed fitting that on the very evening before the chaos of shows and parties began, NYFW creator Fern Mallis chose to begin this season of her Fashion Icons speaker series at the 92Y in New York by interviewing the man who&amp;#039;s not only credited with pioneering the street style phenomenon altogether, but who has also remained a beloved influence and fixture in the industry for years. And it&amp;#039;s telling that in spite of the impending chaos, a huge group of editors, fashion devotees, and industry notables including Carolina Herrera and Norma Kamali packed the auditorium to hear the famously private Cunningham talk about his incredible life. Below are some of the most &amp;quot;marvelous!&amp;quot; (his favorite term) tidbits from the evening:  The suit that Jackie Kennedy wore to JFK&amp;#039;s funeral was originally red\u2014so Cunningham dyed it black for her. &amp;quot;There wasn&amp;#039;t time to get fabric and make a new suit,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;So overnight we dyed it.&amp;quot; An incredible story? &amp;quot;No, just practical,&amp;quot; he insisted. He was enrolled in Harvard, only to drop out after two months. Cunningham&amp;#039;s signature eccentricity wasn&amp;#039;t conducive to an Ivy League environment, in spite of the best efforts of the adults in his life as a teenager. &amp;quot;I said, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;m the wrong guy! I don&amp;#039;t belong in this place!&amp;quot; He got his gig at the Times because of a chance encounter with a Hollywood icon. In 1978, Cunningham was at his signature spot in the city\u201457th Street and 7th Avenue\u2014when he snapped a picture of a particularly stunning woman as she walked by. It happened to be Greta Garbo. &amp;quot;It shows how stupid I am about celebrity, but it&amp;#039;s not interesting to me,&amp;quot; he said earnestly. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s what they&amp;#039;re wearing.&amp;quot; He thinks the red carpet is a lethal concept. &amp;quot;The fashion world killed itself by lending the clothes or giving them away. Who the hell is going to buy anything when you pay them to wear it?&amp;quot; Good point. He witnessed the birth of ready-to-wear. The audience was enthralled as Cunningham launched into a 10-minute saga recounting, in impeccable detail, the Battle of Versailles fashion show in 1973. Liza Minnelli performed wearing Halston, and Yves Saint Laurent, Givenchy, and Oscar de la Renta were among the designers who showed their collections, as was the legendary Stephen Burrows. Cunningham says that Burrows&amp;#039; presentation was particularly incredible, as one of his &amp;quot;empress&amp;quot;-like black models &amp;quot;shot the fiercest look she could possibly muster at the crown heads of Europe.&amp;quot; When the grand show came to an end, &amp;quot;out came Liza Minnelli, and she said, &amp;#039;Bonsoir, Paris!&amp;#039; At that moment in the Royal Opera House of Louis the XIV, the programs were flying in the air! The crowd was going mad. They had just seen a revolution: the end of couture, and the beginning of ready-to-wear.&amp;quot; He keeps every picture he has ever taken filed away in a cabinet\u2014and he worries constantly about what will happen to them. And not for himself, but for his subjects: &amp;quot;The fear is other people getting them, and using a picture that might be unflattering to someone.&amp;quot; He added that he wouldn&amp;#039;t want them to end up in a museum or historical society, either. He really wants nothing to do with money\u2014and is wary of payment. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m terrified of taking money because then, they own you,&amp;quot; he insisted. Even more refreshingly, all he knows about his own funds is that he can get by. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m really not good with money and I don&amp;#039;t pay attention. I know I can eat\u2026&amp;quot; He&amp;#039;d rather be invisible on the job, but not for the reason you think.  &amp;quot;People think I&amp;#039;m being sneaky. I&amp;#039;m trying to be discreet so I don&amp;#039;t disturb or scare a woman on the street.&amp;quot; But while his work is quite anthropological, there&amp;#039;s not really any science to what he does. &amp;quot;Do you think I know what I&amp;#039;m photographing when I&amp;#039;m out there? The street speaks to me. If you&amp;#039;re not out on the street you don&amp;#039;t know anything,&amp;quot; he noted. He thinks technology is the future of fashion. We&amp;#039;re sure we weren&amp;#039;t the only ones stunned to hear this\u2014Cunningham notoriously won&amp;#039;t even use his phone. But, he notes: &amp;quot;Look at the lines waiting to get into the Apple store on 5th Avenue. Do you see that line waiting to get into Bergdorf&amp;#039;s or Saks?&amp;quot; And he thinks that&amp;#039;s A-OK. &amp;quot;The fashion world needs to come to grips with reality. The reality is you have the whole country electronically connected. They&amp;#039;re dressing the insides of their heads, as they should, and not the outside with a fancy hat or a dress. Simple clothes are the key.&amp;quot; But in spite of all his successes and his legendary career, don&amp;#039;t call him an icon. &amp;quot;Legacy?! I&amp;#039;m a worker in the factory; all we care about is today! A legacy\u2026what a bunch of baloney.&amp;quot; We beg to differ. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/fashion/news/a25272/bill-cunningham-fern-mallis-interview/>