The Sixties, David Bailey tells us in his new autobiography, were over by about 1965. The calendars might assert otherwise. But it has a ring of truth, at least when it comes to the sharp-tailored, monochrome, mod version of the ’60s, the era of Swinging London. Bailey ought to know, after all. He modestly claims to have invented the decade.
His journey to New York with the model Jean Shrimpton for a
Vogue shoot in 1962 has taken on some of the legendary qualities of Lenin’s arrival at the Finland Station: a moment that ushered in a revolution. It is possible to overstate how innovative his technique was –