Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on May 2013

Fashion is what you’re wearing. “We all get dressed for Bill,” says Vogue editor Anna Wintour. She’s talking about legendary New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham. This shy, spry, 82-year-old braves the streets of Manhattan all day every day on his venerable bicycle, dressed invariably in a French trash-collector’s jacket, snapping photo after photo, not unlike a war photographer, intensely focused on people on the street and what they chose to put on that morning. Don’t call him a fashion photographer. He could care less about haute couture. He lives in monastic simplicity in an artist’s studio in Carnegie Hall that is up to the ceiling in filing cabinets, with a small space for a cot. The bath is down the hall. This quiet, modest man is contradictorily almost invisible yet a New York institution. At a reception honoring him, he spent most of his time photographing the guests. All in all, he’s one of the most completely and purely happy people you will ever find. And this film will make you happy, too. No passion for fashion needed. Because Bill’s talent is simply noticing, something many of us have forgotten how to do.