Recently filmmaker John McKay revisited David Bailey’s legendary 1962 trip to New York in the BBC film We’ll take Manhattan. During this trip Bailey had to shoot the photo’s for an editorial which was published in the April 1962 edition of British Vogue. He agreed to do the shoot only if the, at that time still unknown, Jean Shrimpton was his model. Bailey and Shrimpton where instructed to shoot mid-priced British fashions against the elegant landmarks and modern architectonic cityscape of Upper Manhattan. Instead of doing this David Bailey and his model Jean Shrimpton travelled with no hair or makeup artist and just his camera and an old teddy bear as prop through the more unpolished side of Manhattan. The shots he made melted raw and realistic street photography with fashion and high art and resulted in a legendary iconic series which captured the new liberated spirit of the decade.The photo’s of this shoot are later published in David Bailey: NYJSDB62 (Steidl, 2007). The film by John McKay explores the hedonistic love affair between the iconic photographer and the Sixties supermodel during this British Vogue fashion shoot.

Read more about David Bailey in this W&V blog post.

Photos by: David Bailey | David Bailey website | Photo 2 and 6 by: BBC | John McKay website