my fashion sketches weeks starting 7th march 2011

looking at 1920's fashion in the movies

Chicago - Nowadays (Finale)

1920's fashion illustrations

fashion and lifestyle project continued......... (next steps)

By now you may understand that I have chosen france to be my chosen country for my fashion and lifestyle project. Now that I have taken a look deeper into this country i have found that the main obsession is that of fashion. Therefore I have decided to choose a decade in france when fashion was at its highest. I have started to look at the 1920's when the works of Coco chanel had expanded considerably right across europe and she was to start a new era in this decade. below is an image of chanels original designs. This will give you an idea of the kind of style clothing aswell as people that I will be drawing.

My fashion and lifestyle illustration project #4

After looking at Rene Gruau's fantastic style in fashion illustration, It has come to my attention that I would like to incorporate some of his styles into my own style of fashion illustration. Rene Gruau's illustrations are bold, simple but really effective. Take, for example the illustration below (Rene Gruau) with the use of screen  printing, I feel that my illustrations would give a similar feel and look as aposed to Rene Gruau's fashion illustrations.

 

My fashion and lifestyle illustration project #3

Today I really felt that all my ideas had vanished from my head and needed to rethink my strategy for my french fashion/lifestyle illustration project. after doing a little research today, I have become very fond of Rene Gruau, A renowned fashion illustrator who settled in paris in 1924 and started his extraordinary journey into fashion illustration.  From 1935 to 1939, he worked with Femina, marie-claire, L’OFFICIEL, L’ALBUM DU FIGARO and other magazines.



In 1946, he did his first job for INTERNATIONAL TEXTILES, whose covers he designed until 1984.
In 1947, his friend Christian DIOR entrusted him with drawing the MISS DIOR advertisement and the famous Bar dress. the New Look was born.
In 1948, he left for the United States to work for HARPER’S BAZAAR and VOGUE, before becoming the exclusive artist for FLAIR.
In 1949, he devoted his time to advertising: ROUGE BAISER, LIDO, MOULIN ROUGE, BEMBERG, BLIZZAND.
Between 1950 and now, he has worked for the greatest names in Haute Couture: BALMAIN, FATH, BALENCIAGA, GIVENCHY, ROCHAS. whilst continuing to produce fashion drawings for ELLE, VOGUE, FRANCE, MADAME FIGARO and L’OFFICIEL DE LA COUTURE.

inspired by paparazzi song - lady gaga

fashion and lifestyle project continued.........

Here in this project i have been asked to create a series of lifestyle illustrations based on a country of my choice. therefore france is a country that is filled with beauty and fashion, I decided to take this as my chosen country. Inspired by coco chanel and many other fashion designers, not forgetting the cultural and architectural places in france especially within paris, I found this to be a great place to start with. Also being inspired by musical artist such as the classical Edith Piaf whos music definately gets me in the mood when feeling the essence of france. this music also helps me to stay on track.

Rene Grau fashion illustration based on  french caberet

fashion illustration experiment - indian ink, acrylic

starting blog february 2011

Hey, im new to blogger but thought what the hey need to start keeping track on my illustration projects to help me understand and to develop further. I am now in the middle of my second year at birmingham city university (BIAD) and would regret to say that i should have started blogging from the very beginning to see my development. At a later date i will post some of my previous work from 1st year and start of the 2nd year of my study.

As you are probably aware students studying illustration are usually expected to know and start to understand their specialism within illustration. Over the last 5 months i have found myself wrapped up and fascinated with the world of fashion illustration and  has almost became an obsession of mine to want to work for a high fashion magazine such as vogue or elle to create some brilliant fashion illustrations for their magazines. I do not see this as being a dream but as a goal that i am choosing to achieve. Only through my blogs will you be able to see my progression and you will be able to follow me along my path.

So what the heck lets do this!!!!!!!