September in New York City marks the beginning of the fall season, but the fashion industry is already looking ahead towards spring with the showcasing of Spring/Summer 2020 collections at New York Fashion Week (NYFW). To celebrate the start of a new fashion season, we’re highlighting the work of world famous fashion photographer, Bill Cunningham…

“The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any one place is always replete with new improvisations.” Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. From poet Walt Whitman to activist Jane Jacobs to fashion photographer Bill Cunningham, New Yorkers have celebrated their streets as…

“Fashion is unfolding, just like nature,” reads the caption for a recent On the Street column by famed New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham (whose work is currently on exhibit at N-YHS).  Now that spring has finally arrived, we decided to take a look at seasonal fashion in New York over a hundred years ago….

Fashion week, Alexander McQueen at the Met . . . . lately, we’ve been looking at fashion very seriously.   But fashion has always had its funny side too.   Take, for example, this 1776 caricature of the Battle of Bunker Hill. Caricature File, PR 010 One of a series of satires by the husband-and-wife team Matthew…