Fashion Climbing

In today's newsletter from Austin Kleon he informed me that Bill Cunningham's memoir is called Fashion Climbing and is set to be released on September 4th! The article from The New York Times featured some beautiful photos of Mr. Cunningham and shed a bit of light on what to expect from Fashion Climbing. The excerpt below has haunted me since I read it:

"There I was, 4 years old, decked out in my sister’s prettiest dress,” reads the memoir’s second sentence. “Women’s clothes were always much more stimulating to my imagination. That summer day, in 1933, as my back was pinned to the dining room wall, my eyes spattering tears all over the pink organdy full-skirted dress, my mother beat the hell out of me, and threatened every bone in my uninhibited body if I wore girls’ clothes again."

I know that most parents do their best. Some fall short. Like Bill's mother. I read this and kept thinking about how wonderful a man Bill Cunningham was. How he seemed so warm and genuine, kind and energetic, and so incredibly inspirational. I wonder how his life would have been if he'd had a supportive mother who expressed unconditional love. I can't imagine Bill as being a better person; that simply couldn't be possible, but I do think that if he was accepted one hundred percent, how much happier he might have been in his personal life. 

I am looking forward to September when I can crack open this book and get to know Mr. Cunningham a bit better and learning new details that made him who he was - a truly great man.