Very little is know of Burton Berry, except that he was an American diplomat and senior member of the American Numismatic Society (thats coin collecting), he was also an important textile collector and served as consul to Istanbul, Bucharest, Cairo and Beirut before becoming Ambassador to Iraq and then retiring to Zurich. It is in Zurich in the late 60's- and when he was in his early sixties, that he shot this book. Presented as a guide to youth fashions (which it is), the book is more a vehicle for Berry's lust, admiration and fascination for the young men he documents. He is partiularly interested in long hair, the feminisation of youth and the flambouyancy of dress at the time. The images are very much what would be later called streetstyle shots, and Berry does an excellent job categorising and presenting them, and seems to have struck up a dialogue with his subjects to really get an understanding of what was going on at the time. The overall feeling though, is that of a tender love affair with youth itself, in a way only a man in his sixties could produce.
