Look At This!
Picturing Science
Click on image for an amazing slideshow of scientific imagery courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History
Ted’s Drawing Room
Wonderful to see increasing interest in fashion drawing; some of the featured artists’ work follow. Click on names for links to portfolios.
Emma Löfström
Miss Led
Niki Pilkington
Outerwear
Baby Elephant and Keepers
Photograph by Michael Nichols, National Geographic
This Month in Photo of the Day: National Geographic Magazine Features
Dedicated keepers at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust’s Nairobi Elephant Nursery in Kenya protect baby Shukuru from the cold and rain, and the risk of pneumonia, with a custom-made raincoat.
Fantastic Zoology by Francisco Toledo
While on the topic of beasties, Toledo/Borges Fantastic Zoology bears a second look. My first encounter was in 2010 at the Instituto Cervantes in NYC on the recommendation of my dear friend Savina Moynova. From the Instituto Cervantes website:
“This show is the result from combining the extraordinary creations produced by two prominent 20th century artists: Jorge Luis Borges and Francisco Toledo.In 1983 Oaxacan artist Francisco Toledo tried his hand at illustrating the Handbook of Fantastic Zoology by Jorge Luis Borges 1953, commissioned by Fondo de Cultura Económica de México. Bestiaries, which were extremely popular during the Middle Ages, date back to Aristotle and classical Greece. In this manuel, Borges and Guerrero put together a collection of beings from a whole range of eras and literary traditions, and also attempt to create beasts based on suppositions of creatures taht writers like Kafka, Lewis and Poe might have imagined or conjured up. These beings were recrated by fantastic Oaxacan artist Francisco Toledo, who had formerly rendered beings inspired by the tradition of his homeland: chapulines (grasshoppers), iguanas, lizards, turtles, monkeys. Toledo embraced the complex venture of depicting and coloring the beasts envisaged and created by Borges and Guerrero to produce the magnificent series of drawings and watercolors that structure this show.”
According to Borges (responsible for text), only a fool would insist on the non-existence of dragons!
For a fabulous animation by Francisco Toledo — La serpiente cabalista — please click image below
Biomimicry
Evidence of Biomimicry as a design strategy (a hot topic in all of my classes for the past year) is very much apparent in Riccardo Tisci’s latest couture collection for Givenchy.
Peter Doh was inspired by Leiolepis Ngovantrii, a self-cloning lizard recently discovered in Vietnam. Because this lizard has the power to reproduce on its own, the offspring are exact replicas of the parent and the species is entirely female –an apt inspiration for revisiting the power suit.
Sidney Halela drew inspirtation from her lifelong fetish with rhinos.
More beasties to follow shortly…
Intimate
Exquisite trade show visual via Shanghai Mode Lingerie:
Pricked
I seem to have my head on backwards these days, referring to exhibitions that have long since come and gone. But the Embroidery show at the Museum of Art and Design bears revisiting as a wonderful example of the use of narrative in art. My copy of the catalog for this show seems to have gone missing and despite my commitment to the iPad, this is one book IRL that I intend to replace.
Wallpaper
Kudos AGAIN to Prada for commissioning fashion illustrators Ivo Besignano, Andrea Tarella and Marcela Gutierrez to create supersized watercolor portraits. Gutierrez, whose work has been used for everything from surface design to reportage to stage design, repositions fashion illustration as installation art. Her paintings remind me of the type of book covers once used for pulp fiction. This fusion of fashion and art also reminded me of the Marc Jacobs’ advertising campaign that incorporated the work of Elizabeth Peyton. Impressions derived from photographs are surely in the mix…a rich topic to be explored shortly.
Prada Yo Video Handsome Mask
To enhance the narrative behind their YoYo bag, Prada sponsored the Yo Video series where eight young filmmakers were challenged to create their own back story for the bag.
A marvelous animation by Spike Jonze via Nowness
Bayonetta new fashion icon:
No this is not Sarah Palin on Mars (would that she were!)
I like to remind my students that there is an alternative to the emaciated mannikin for fashion. Moreover, comics, manga, animé and video games are a huge influence on all visual culture. Apart from the violence (although I must admit her weaponry is beautifully designed) I am quite enamored with Sega’s action hero Bayonetta.
Craig Redman: Pop Portraits
The Darcel Artist Unveils His Day-Glo Caricatures of Fashion Icons
Australian graphic artist Craig Redman’s pop art-inspired portraits of leading Italian fashion figures offer a psychedelic take on the front rows of Milan Fashion Week. Taken from his upcoming solo show, Protagonist, at Milan’s Slam Jam Store, the works feature celebrated designers such as Riccardo Tisci and Miuccia Prada alongside iconic personalities including Valentino and Anna Piaggi. Better known for his egg-shaped alter-ego Darcel, the New York-based Redman collaged elements from a variety of images into cubist portraits of his subjects before replacing their natural shapes with geometric forms. “People normally have a pretty visceral response,” he says. “I think there’s a hopeful optimism in the work and it’s not alienating, which sometimes happens in the fashion world.” Juxtaposing Ben – Day dots with crosshatching and a variety of bold, flat colors, Redman’s striking but approachable pieces imbue some of the fashion world’s most recognizable likenesses with an undeniable sense of fun. Click for Video: Craig Redman Pop Portraits Milan
Pattern Magic/Paul Alexander Thornton
All images © 2011 Paul Alexander Thornton
Check out his process/music
Inkling!
The Serve Racket Speed – artfully diagrammed and animated
ILLUSTRATIONS By CAROL FABRICATORE
click for video: The Serve: Racket Speed
Congratulations to all of the newlyweds in NY State! To commemorate the occassion, a brief demo of rendering lace and some lovely applications for all…
VMagazine recently invited readers to submit illustrations of their new fashion columnist Lady Gaga. Highlights from the Drawn This Way contest follow.
Now that I have settled into the slower rhythms of the summer, I’ve had a chance to reflect on some stellar work done by my students in the academic year just completed. In review, it was apparent that the quality of the work — both in terms of concept and execution — was the best ever.
The exploration of new materials and technologies — also a hot topic this year— often begins in performance apparel, with a rapid and increasing crossover into fashion.
Sean Kim was keen on exploring “interaction design” principles for fashion through the use of new technologies such as quick response codes and heat sensitive fabrics. The depth of his research lead him to the sourcing of fabrics and presentation materials that allowed both his illustrations and fabric swatches to literally change color and pattern at the touch of a hand.
Although the nature of a designer’s research can take many forms, first hand experience is the ideal source of inspiration for a collection. Following is an exquisite collection by Jenny Choi inspired by the Mioux H’mong culture which she first encountered on her visit to Vietnam last summer. When Jenny asked me how she might begin development of her thesis collection for the coming fall semester, I strongly suggested that she again go on vacation!
Thanks to Piet Halberstadt for turning me on to photographer Fulvio Bonavia’s A Matter of Taste.
Once more it is really encouraging to see illustration featured at still another high profile blog. Check out artist Tara Dougans illustrations of Antwerp Academy graduate collections at nowness.
Thanks to Andrew Yang for turning me on to Papier ala Mode. Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave is a painter by training, but textile and costume are her muses. Working in collaboration with leading costume historians and young fashion designers, de Borchgrave crafts a world of splendor from the simplest rag paper. Painting and manipulating the paper, she forms trompe l’oeil masterpieces of elaborate dresses inspired by rich depictions in early European painting or by iconic costumes in museum collections around the world. The Legion of Honor was the first American museum to dedicate an entire exhibition to her work. See the documentary about the mounting of the exhibition at the Legion of Honor.
It is really encouraging to see Showstudio featuring illustration! A key source of inspiration behind Nick Knight and Nicola Formichetti’s editorial, illustrator Mel Odom curates this exclusive gallery of his work.
If you don’t know about Herakut, you should…their work is featured in Fashion Drawing: Illustration Techniques for Fashion Designers on pp128, 138, 157 and 160.
Congratulations to former student Paula Cheng for winning the competition held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in conjunction with the exhibition Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty. Paula’s statement and images follow:
My dress originates from my personal obsession with knitting, and the formation of loops and structure. Unlike woven fabric, knitting mimics the growth of bacteria, where the intertwining of yarns and joining of loops form fabrics, and the twisting of the loops forms three-dimensional structures. I began my research by exploring different types of techniques of knitting, manipulations of fibers, as well as colors of yarn. As the patterns derive from organic shapes and lines like trees and branches, I had to go through many trials and errors to translate the amorphous patterns of nature into knit samples. I was trying to elevate the surface of the flat fabrics by short rowing, tucking and manipulating the knits with hand and machine knitting. So this project was really about my obsession of plying and mixing metallic hues, the pulling loops into loops to form fabric, texture, and ultimately structure. It was just as complex yet as simple as my own journey of what it is to create, to make, “to fashion.”
Back in April when I was in Paris to participate in a panel discussion at the IFFTI conference, I had the enormous good fortune to take in the Madame Grés Exhibition. What follows is truly pattern magic.
http://www.parismusees.com/madame-gres/
Multi multi media: Il etait une fois — Benjamin Lacombe By BCWALL
Boy! a colorful stripey riff on Americana with equal measures of Jerome Robbins and early R and B thrown in.
…amazing collaboration and fabulous spin on tailored clothing:
Ever since Chanel’s “little black dress” streetstyle has been an everpresent force in fashion. So it really is important to look up from that mobile device from time to time…and then use it to capture something fabulous and ephemeral IRL (in the real world). Here guerrilla grafitti art by the duo OsGemeos on location in NYC. Top: West 21st Street between 8th and 9th Avenues (seen enroute to the highline) and on Bowery and Houston in 2009. For more inspirational grafitti art see Fashion Drawing: Illustration Techniques for Fashion Designers pp 128, 138, 157 and 160.
During the lengthy process of realizing a 2D concept sketch as a 3D product, many changes often take place that affect garment scale and construction details. Here, Sun Mi Kim remained true to her vision in the completion of her Spring Preview. All images © 2011 Sun Mi Kim
Every year at this time there is a flurry of excitement surrounding the delivery of final projects. It can be extremely gratifying to see the culmination of a year’s work. While waiting on the final projects, I took a short pause to get an overview of student work delivered this year — much of it arriving after my book went to press. It will be a good long while before the 2nd Edition of Fashion Drawing, but you can get a glimpse of the future here now. Expect many additional posts as the semester draws down and I free up.
The classroom experience provides a wonderful opportunity for the mutual exchange of ideas. My students often recommend or shed new light on all sorts of things. Several years back Julia Faye Blum, who now designs for Kiki de Montparnasse (her thesis collection is featured on page 402), turned me on to Marina Bychkova’s Enchanted Dolls. These exquisitely detailed and wildly imaginative dolls were recently part of a Showstudio installation in London. To my mind the Enchanted Dolls are an example of how fashion illustration is increasingly moving towards 3D and animation. Check out the Enchanted Doll Fight video (be patient, the argument slowly heats up and is eventually resolved).
While researching images for Fashion Drawing I came across a really interesting campaign for 55dsl by comic book artist Ashley Wood (responsible for Tank Girl of late). Originating in 2005, the ‘Dark Tales, Only to Be Read at Home’ series is hardly late breaking news — but certainly worth a second look. Since the sixties, when the advancement of graphic reproduction technologies began to accelerate, all forms of “orignal” art have gradually shifted from real world to increasingly virtual formats. Here, Ashley Wood manipulates photographic imagery with naturalistic paint tools in PhotoShop. Two versions of the catalog were produced, with the deluxe limited edition of 500 signed by the artist and the rest available at 55dsl stores. Be warned, what follows is a bit nasty!
Check out SSION, an amazing blend of drawing, performance and madness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW_tXgGrVu0/watch?v=lW_tXgGrVu0