David Bailey, CBE (born 1938)
David Bailey has become synonymous with London during the 1960s – he was a photographer who was as famous as his subjects and, with a voracious appetite for work, parties and his female sitters, he became the principal inspiration for the photographer lead in Michelangelo Antonioni’s film, 'Blow-Up' (1966). He and his friends, Terence Donovan and Brian Duffy, were together dubbed the ‘Black Trinity’ by elder rival Norman Parkinson, and represented the young, working-class, heterosexual new face of fashion photography.
David Bailey was born in Leytonstone, East London, on 2 January 1938 into a traditional, working class family, and experienced a typical wartime childhood. After leaving school at fifteen, he struggled to find a career until he was demobbed from National Service in 1958 and settled on photography. Bailey’s first break was securing an assistant’s job at the studio of John French, the well-known fashion photographer. Later that year he was contracted to 'Vogue' magazine, and his star soon began to rise.
Bailey’s reputation was backed up by a raw talent for photography that incorporated stark white backgrounds, uncompromising crops, and striking poses.
He was to photography what the Rolling Stones were to pop music – his images radiated youth and sexuality, and helped to define the look of British fashion and style during the period. During the early 1960s, his professional and personal relationship with the model, Jean Shrimpton, was a key factor in cementing this fame. Championed by 'Vogue', Bailey and Shrimpton created numerous, iconic fashion images, and became one of the key celebrity couples of their time. Then, in 1965, Bailey’s celebrated Box of 'Pin-Ups', a catalogue of the famous faces in London at the time, lent further controversy to his fame as it featured the London gangsters, Reggie and Ronnie Kray. This only fuelled the nation’s appetite for David Bailey and, working mostly for 'Vogue', he became the most famous and influential British fashion photographer of the 1960s.
