Fashion Climbing: A Memoir with Photographs

Bill Cunningham was a staple of New York City’s streets with his trademark blue jacket and camera. Cunningham’s memoir, Fashion Climbing: A Memoir with Photographs, was published posthumously and mainly discusses his early life from discovering fashion to becoming a part of a world that he adored. I always thought of him as a photographer, but he was also a hat designer whose first taste of Paris was thanks to Uncle Sam then later a fashion writer.
Fashion Climbing: A Memoir with Photographs may be solid evidence that every person on Earth faces obstacles to being true to oneself. Can you imagine if his horrified family successfully convinced him to suppress his love of fashion? It is absurd, but so are gender norms so there it is. I guess that they finally saw the light because his family discovered this memoir and helped get it published, but to be fair, the ones who disapproved probably passed long ago.
Fashion Climbing: A Memoir with Photographs is a great work regarding fashion history without deliberately being ponderous and academic. We get a perspective of the industry and ever changing styles from someone in the center of the maelstrom, a lived experience, as opposed to an outsider looking through the archives and scouring for primary sources. I’m old enough to remember some of the department stores that he references, but it is an era that would be foreign to most readers. We’ve sacrificed spectacle and theatricality for convenience and practicality. Theoretically I’m sad about it because these department stores played a central, American dream achieved role for the members of my family that immigrated from Barbardos to New York City, but on a practical and financial level, it is better for the average shopper’s wardrobe and wallet. As a black American of a certain size, it has never been more aggravating to shop in person.
Even though I am into fashion, and it is a short book, I occasionally found it difficult to build up any momentum while reading Fashion Climbing: A Memoir with Photographs. Cunningham’s detail and awe over various fashions, particularly hats, was wasted on me, and he would be the first to understand because he witnessed his greatest love become obsolete early in his life and accepted it graciously. As a reader, I can only read so many descriptions of outfits before I lose the overall shape of the story. It isn’t a criticism of his book per se. When a life is so dominated by fashion, the fashion details are a part of the story, but if it doesn’t interest you, then maybe reconsider before committing to reading this book. Cunningham is the first to admit that he wasn’t a good businessman, but aspiring designers could probably learn some crucial development tips from this memoir.
If you’re looking for dishy gossip, Fashion Climbing: A Memoir with Photographs is only relevant if you’re familiar with famous people from a bygone era. The details about the famous customers who patronized his shop will only be theoretically interesting because fame is ephemeral. It isn’t until later in the book when he becomes a journalist and starts covering fashion houses that I began to regularly recognize designer names and personages.
Fashion Climbing: A Memoir with Photographs gets weaker in terms of focus when the memoir turns to his career as a journalist. Cunningham may be a bon vivant and affable man, but he was still pissed about his physical treatment at certain establishments and the lack of backing from his editors so he used the book as an opportunity to air his grievances. While I love ax grinding, it did not make for terribly riveting reading, but I’ll allow it because it must be satisfying to finally get everyone to hear your side of a story even if no one is still thinking of it, including Cunningham.
I was a smidge salty while reading this section of Fashion Climbing: A Memoir with Photographs because Cunningham is quite candid about being a poor writer and a horrible speller. The spelling is forgivable because we have outsourced this work to our technology, but if someone is getting paid to write, and he was not just his harshest critic or extremely self-deprecating, it stings when you think of the number of opportunities that he received as a student and a professional. On one hand, definitely nurture raw fashion talent and reward the hard work that Cunningham undeniably devoted to becoming a fixture in the fashion industry, but don’t give him a writing job. It makes me wonder how many people did not get the same opportunities and may have been better qualified, but perhaps because they did not fit the same demographic as Cunningham, they were not viewed as favorably and judged harsher for fewer failings.
Fashion Climbing: A Memoir with Photographs was a bit superficial for my tastes. While I enjoyed reading it, it took longer than it should have because of how engrossed Cunningham was with fashion details. Even to a philistine such as myself, it was inspirational. My favorite concept that Cunningham revisits throughout the book states, “This was to be the hardest lesson, that of throwing off outside influences and making definite designs of my own.” It cannot be underestimated the amount of work that it takes to confront fixtures in your life and work so you can discard what was imposed and what is endemic to our essence as an individual.