NEW ICONS OF FASHION ILLUSTRATION: PART TWO

Part Two of my Q&A with Tony Glenville, author of New Icons of Fashion Illustration (Laurence King), includes Glenville's thoughts on collecting the works of fashion artists, both as an investment and just for the love of the art form. I've also included an inspiring series of images from the book. Enjoy!

Click here for Part One:

LJ: Is fashion illustration an important part of the curriculum for fashion design students?

TG: Designers are not necessarily illustrators, it is often a different skill. Many designers can "sketch", but not much more. At London College of Fashion we have a Fashion Illustration BA course, which is highly successful. Learning to mark-make is vital to designers, but the art and craft of successful fashion illustrators is a separate learning curve and gift.

LJ: Do you collect contemporary fashion illustration, as well as fashion illustrations by fashion artists from the past?

TG: I am ashamed to say NO, but my collecting has to stop somewhere. Gazette du Bon Ton is still my key illustration collection, alongside the work of the artist/cartoonist/observer SEM, whose work I adore.

Kareem Iliya
Courtesy Kareem Iliya

NEW ICONS OF FASHION ILLUSTRATION: PART ONE

Readers of this blog will know how much I adore fashion illustration, so I was delighted to discover that Tony Glenville has written New Icons of Fashion Illustration, published by Laurence King.

Glenville is a much respected fashion journalist and commentator and he is also Creative Director: School of Media & Communication at London College of Fashion. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing him for many years and in his latest book, Glenville explores the new breed of fashion illustrators working across a wide remit of mixed media, including hi-tech and more traditional methods of drawing.

Glenville very kindly agreed to do a Q&A exclusively for this blog, which highlights several of the illustrators featured in his book.

LJ: What was the catalyst for writing the book?

TG: Actually the book started as a commission from Laurence King; but shifted and evolved into the present publication through much discussion of the current world status of fashion Illustration and other books on the subject already available.

VALENTINE'S DAY GIFT TAGS & CARDS

Happy Valentine's Day!

I've been busy making cards and gift tags for Valentine's and decided that there's really only one word that sums-up what today is all about...

Luckily 'love' works all year round, so there's shelf-life in these little cards and tags beyond today's celebrations. The white and black versions are simple, yet dramatic, and I also like using the buff luggage labels for gift tags, as well as for labelling vintage clothing and accessories for sales. The tags are also perfect for labelling bottles and jars, identifying seeds collected from the garden and for sorting out collections of keys and other bits and bobs around the house. True multi-taskers!

So if you aren't into the bright red and pink, heart and teddy bear embellished Valentine's cards, that seem to be the norm for the 14th February, then these pure and 
to-the-point designs might be more appealing.

The production line on the kitchen table...

HARPER'S BAZAAR VINTAGE SPY

My first blog for harpersbazaar.co.uk is up! The website includes inspiring blogs by Kay Montano, Sara Parker Bowles and Sadie Frost and I'm very excited to be penning the Vintage Spy blog. 

Bazaar boasts such a rich heritage, which is reflected throughout the magazine and the website. The magazine is looking even more fabulous now that editor Justine Picardie is heading the team. The next issue, featuring the beautiful Rachel Weisz on the cover, is the largest yet and showcases the first fashion story from the title's new Global Fashion Director, Carine Roitfeld. I'm looking forward to seeing the fashion story shot at the V&A, pairing contemporary designs with pieces from the museum's extensive fashion collection. It's the first time that the V&A has allowed a fashion shoot to take place in its glorious buildings, so the images, shot by couture photographer Cathleen Naundorf, should be quite something.

Actress Rachel Weisz graces the cover of the March 2013 issue of Harper's Bazaar

A preview of the special subscribers' cover of the March 2013 issue of Harper's Bazaar, shot by 
Cathleen Naundorf at the V&A

LONDON FASHION WEEK: AUTUMN/WINTER 2013

Can't wait for London Fashion Week next month! There's always such an exciting buzz surrounding the designer catwalk shows and The Exhibition at LFW. I've attended the fashion shows and exhibitions, in all their guises, since I started working on fashion magazines in the early 80's and I've watched LFW blossom into a huge global affair, since its launch in 1984. Today, London is internationally recognised as the place to watch for rising fashion talent, as well as being home to several major league players such as Burberry and Matthew Williamson. Our fashion colleges are second to none and have nurtured so many of the current leading designers working both here and internationally. So we should embrace our flourishing fashion industry and the fact that we are right up there with Paris, Milan and New York in the fashion stakes!

Models backstage at Erdem Spring/Summer 2013
Photo caption

TALES FROM THE DRESSING TABLE: FRAGRANCE

Is there anything more evocative than fragrance? In a heartbeat, just a trace of a certain perfume can transport you back in time. For me, Madame Rochas, Diorissimo and Miss Dior by Christian Dior, Caleche by Hermes and Je Reviens by Worth all instantly remind me of my mother and my childhood in the Sixties. I'd have to add the heady scent of Elnett hairspray to that list, too, as it was such a fixture on my mother's dressing table and she was forever spraying great clouds of the stuff around her head. I'll never forget the time she was in a rush and reached for the hairspray, only to realise, too late, that she was spraying her hair with a can of furniture polish. Her fabulous beehive, that had taken her ages to backcomb and perfect, slowly disintegrated into a soggy mess before our eyes. I'm pretty sure I got the giggles at that stage and was ceremoniously marched out of my parents' bedroom.

But back to the serious fragrances - it isn't only the wonderful aromas of the perfumes my mother wore that have stayed with me all these years, it's also the memory of the feel and the shape of the fragrance bottles. I so adored admiring and holding those beautiful bottles as a child. They were like artefacts; so pleasingly tactile and luxurious, and so different to my assorted bottles of 4711 toilet water and other, totally insipid toiletries, that I used to get for Christmas. 

Miss Dior advertisement from 1971, illustrated by Christian Dior's great friend, Renee Gruau.
Miss Dior was created in 1941 by Paul Vacher and Jean Carles
Photo credit

Q&A: FASHION ARTIST DAVID DOWNTON

I'm passionate about fashion illustration and I've always made a point of commissioning fashion drawings on the publications I've worked on. I love mixing illustration with photography for pace and contrast, and my favourite artists include David Downton, Mats Gustafson, Rene Gruau and Carl Erickson. I was over the moon to be given several of David Downton's beautiful fashion drawings a few years ago. They hang in our bedroom and are such a treat to wake-up to every morning! 

One of my treasured David Downton illustrations: Versace, 2006. Acrylic, watercolour and ink on paper
Private Collection/Picture caption

As a leading fashion artist and a regular at the Haute Couture shows in Paris, David's evocative images can be seen in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and a host of international fashion titles. He recently published Masters of Fashion Illustration, a lavishly illustrated book that pays tribute to his favourite 20th-century fashion illustrators and also includes an inspiring portfolio of David's own unique work. The book is a true celebration of fashion drawing and also succinctly depicts how this engaging art form has changed and re-invented itself over the past century, with drawings by artists such as Bob Peak and Andy Warhol looking as relevant today as they did when first created in the 50's and 60's.

I've been fortunate to commission David to create fashion drawings and portraits over the years, including images of Cate Blanchett and Ralph Fiennes, and it never ceases to amaze me how, with just a few well placed lines, he can create such detailed and haunting images. Several of David's artworks included in the book feature in this post, alongside illustrations by some of his favourite artists. 

David very kindly agreed to contributed a Q&A exclusively to this blog, which reveals his favourite fashion artists, his preferred artists' materials and what's in-store for 2013.