David Bailey Takes London Back to the Leica Gallery

David Bailey has spent six decades photographing the faces that define fashion, culture and society. His latest exhibition, Time After Time, turns the lens towards something rather closer to home: London.

Opening the new Leica Gallery London at its Mayfair store, the exhibition brings together vintage and later prints documenting the city that shaped Bailey, from its post-war streets and weathered architecture to the people and places that informed his early photographic work.

Before becoming one of fashion photography’s most influential figures, Bailey was developing a distinctly different visual language. Having trained at John French’s studio and Studio Five, he began placing models in urban settings, replacing the carefully constructed, mannequin-like compositions of 1950s fashion photography with something more spontaneous, immediate and alive.

That instinct would help redefine the genre. The exhibition also revisits the beginnings of some of his most significant collaborations, including Jean Shrimpton, photographed on Tower Bridge in 1964 wearing Bailey’s army jacket. An image that captures the photographer’s instinct for stripping fashion back to something considerably more interesting than the clothes alone.

Time After Time offers a look at Bailey’s relationship with the capital beyond the familiar portraits: a personal record of a city observed over a lifetime. All exhibited works are available to purchase.

Time After Time runs from 11 November 2026 to 14 January 2027 at Leica Gallery London, 14 Dover Street, Mayfair, London W1S 4LW.