I’m talking to David Bailey, in his studio in a mews near King’s Cross, about the moment he first set eyes on Jean Shrimpton. That’s what Bailey does – he sets his eyes on things, particularly people, and especially women; he looks at them, and then he captures them. Later, others may try to capture them too, but it’s never the same.
When he first saw Jean Shrimpton, she was being snapped by Brian Duffy, a rival photographer. Something clicked inside Bailey’s head – something that would click over and over again, with different people, especially women, for decades – and he was, suddenly and helplessly, smitten.
Bailey was 22. Shrimpton was 17. “She was doing a Kellogg’s ad with Duffy. I was just walking