Bill Cunningham’s Body of Work Is Brought to Life With an Immersive Exhibition

“Dress for Bill,” the invitation instructed invitees to the exhibition, Experience the Times of Bill Cunningham, which made its debut last night in Manhattan’s Seaport District. Housed inside a former Abercrombie & Fitch storefront, the immersive experience is decidedly more high fashion, showcasing a lifetime of photos taken by Bill Cunningham alongside footage from the documentary, The Times of Bill Cunningham, directed by Mark Bozek. 

“This film was slated to debut just a few weeks before the pandemic hit, and it didn’t because the world closed, but I didn’t want this to become a digital release that fell to the bottom of some algorithm, so I wondered what we could do differently,” Bozek told us as supermodel Iman swanned through the room. “So, we broke the film up, and what you’re seeing here is a journey through Bill’s life, but told in a way that you’re not sitting at home and watching it on your TV or mobile phone.”

Joining Bozek was Edwin Schlossberg, who co-designed the exhibition, which features photos of his wife Caroline Kennedy and mother-in-law Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, photographed by Bill in their finest frocks. “It’s emotional to see them all in here,” he told Vogue before walking us through some of the design elements of the space. Peppered throughout are nods to Cunningham’s personal life: mountains of filing cabinets that once filled his Carnegie Hall apartment, those milk crates and foam padding he fashioned into a bed, the bicycle he used to traipse around the city, and, of course, his signature blue jacket. For Cunningham, it may have been a purely functional piece of clothing, cleverly repurposed from the wardrobe of Parisian sanitation workers, but to party guests and Cunningham obsessives, the blue jacket sits firmly in the pantheon of fashionable artifacts, made clear by the fact it was ensconced in a plexiglass display. 

Those who dressed for Bill included Jordan Roth and Amy Fine Collins, who both arrived in head-to-toe Thom Browne ensembles. Rocker Debbie Harry was bedecked in plaid and on the arm of Zac Posen, while Olivia Palermo opted for a pink silk gown piped with wispy feathers, and Maye Musk wore a shimmering, Art Deco-inspired overcoat. All would have earned the stamp of approval from Bill with a snap of his camera. “I just think this exhibit is fabulous,” Musk told us. “You learn so much more about him, but also the fashion that was not obvious. It was creative, and different, and I loved everything I saw today.”