Fashion Climbing is the story of a young man striving to be the person he was born to be: a true original. But although he was one of the city's most recognized and treasured figures, Bill was also one of its most guarded.
Fashion Climbing is delightfully dishy, snarky, judgmental, harsh, kind, adoring and ridiculously straightforward ... He was an incomparable observer of the New York social scene ... the most wonderful part of Fashion Climbing for this reader wasn’t the divine and transformative writing about the clothes or the parties, it was reading about all of Cunningham’s personal heroes — all women ... it is hard not to be gobsmacked reading it ... Fashion Climbing is smart and pure, revealing of a person’s sense of truth, self, business, confidence and wonderment at the world.
Set against a backdrop of postwar retail, high society and fashion, this obscenely enjoyable romp fills in part of the Cunningham back story and provides tantalizing peeks into the psyche of the guarded and mysterious Bill ... Bill’s quirky, unpretentious voice guides the reader through the postwar period of Manhattan glamour ... Fashion Climbing, with its truncated timeline, leaves the reader gasping for more ... His observations about fashion and culture sharpened over time. I can only hope there’s another installment lurking in his archives.
Like a pair of pearl earrings from Tiffany’s, Bill Cunningham’s posthumous memoir arrives as if in a small blue box. It’s an unexpected gift ... Fashion Climbing is reminiscent of Archie comic books and moony teenagers sharing a malted milkshake in 1957 ... At times Fashion Climbing can seem like the most guileless thing ever written and its author slightly touched in the head, in a kind and upbeat 'Forrest Gump' sort of way ... Fashion Climbing is poorly served by Hilton Als’s introduction, which is emotive... while not telling you any of the things you want to know.
