David Bailey was born on 2 January 1938 in North Leyton, East London. He left school at fifteen and was conscripted to the Royal Air Force in 1956.

Bailey started working with fashion photographer, John French as his assistant in 1959. He left soon after to strike out on his own and published his first portrait of Somerset Maugham for Today magazine in 1960. In 1965 he published David Bailey's Box of Pin-Ups which is now seen as defining an era and shaped the future of photography.