Book Review: Fashion Illustration for Designers, by Katheryn Hagen

Fashion Illustration for Designers, by Katheryn Hagen is probably one of the best books on this subject. The market is flooded with books on how to create fashion illustrations, but few bring together skilled life drawing techniques, sketch and drawing, along with color media and Photoshop technologies.

Tom Tierney: Fashion & Costume Illustrator

Merry Christmas! This illustration is by Tom Tierney, the card he emailed out in 2012 for the holidays.

Tom Tierney virtually changed how people saw historical costume and fashion. Through his wonderful fashion illustrations that he introduced in the 1970's, the general public found a new way to see historical costume. His were colorful illustrations that everyone could identify with and enjoy. It's from these small beginnings that many costume and fashion students got their first glimpse of the world of fashion. Tom passed away this year, and I know we will miss seeing new examples of his work in the future. Thanks Tom for sharing your gift of illustration and your love of fashion with us!

John "Tom" Thomas Tierney
(October 8, 1928 - July 12, 2014)

Read more about Tom Tierney:


INTERVIEW: New York Times

INTERVIEW with Dover Publications, his publisher

INTERVIEW with NPR radio

INTERVIEW: newspaper/online, "My San Antonio"

A New Look at Paper Dolls

Some of the best times that I spent during summer vacations growing up was cutting out paper dolls. Eventually we would draw our own using crude crayons to create simple, but original fashion designs.

I still love looking at paper dolls and wonder if you too have noticed the current trend in new paper dolls? Some of the nicest are drawn by Danielle Meder and posted on her blog. She has a gorgeous set of Vionnet designs there if fashion history is your thing.

If you're looking for current fashion trends, check out: final fashion.ca to see more of this Naomi Campbell set.

Merle Bassett: 1960's fashion illustrations

These bold and dramatic fashion illustrations were painted in the early 1960's by Merle Bassett, one of the best known illustrators of that time.  His career began in Los Angeles, studying art at Chouinard Art Institute.  He found his first job for Joseph Magnin stores in San Francisco, and later Neiman Marcus in Dallas.  He finally made his way to New York city where he would have a successful career as a fashion illustrator for several decades.

The illustration technique seen here uses strong black ink brushwork over a colored background that was brushed on first within the area, but not defining it precisely.

For more details on his fascinating career, you will want to read his own story, here.

Another 60's Romantic Wedding Look

This 1960's bride creates her own world where Victorian romance and Mod style combine to create a fairy tale princess world.  

Illustration: guache on illustration board, artist unknown

Fall 1961: Fashion Illustrations for Evening

Fall 1961, fashion illustrations by Mouchy, for an editorial on evening wear and eye makeup showing the younger point of view for that season. The pages are green, white, gold and silver with the black line illustrations.

Late 1930's Fashion Illustration by Eric: Carl Erickson

Eric was an American fashion illustrator during the 1930's through mid-1950's. His full name was Carl Erickson (1891 - 1958). He is best known for his full color "Vogue" editorials, that he created during the more than 35 years that he contributed to the magazine.

Eric's style included a sensitive line often created with black brush strokes or charcoal made on rough paper. His portraits of famous clients included Gertrude Stein, Queen Elizabeth and President Roosevelt. He worked from live models, rather than photos. Most of this time he lived in Paris, the fashion center during those decades.

This illustration was cropped and removed from the original magazine issue, so the date is general: about 1938.

1950's Fashion Illustrations

Dramatic strokes in black create impact and visual texture in these magazine illustrations for several Simplicity sewing patterns from the mid 1950's.

Deep black strokes of what is probably charcoal are seen on a textured paper that make for a high energy composition with rough lines. In creating the illustrations, the artist developed the color areas first, probably using opaque gouache, a water soluble paint.  Details were left out in the high light areas so that the overall effect wouldn't be flat or even.  The body and face are colorless as well, giving the garment full focus in the layout.  Over this first layer of color, black strokes were then applied.  Finer ink lines from a pen then detail the faces and garment structure.

 

This illustration technique is developed from a well defined primary illustration that is layered under the top illustration paper, creating a guide for the artist to use as the color, then black lines are applied. Often a light table is required so that a thicker, more textured illustration paper can be used for the final work.

Today fashion illustrators often use markers and marker paper, layering their primary sketch under the marker paper.  It would be used as a guide when applying marker ink strokes to the top layer of marker paper.

 

I thought it might be interesting to compare the first illustrations to these simple yet stylish versions of the same garments.  They are illustrations from the original pattern envelopes.  You can see how these versions are very simple, with clearly shown details and garment seam lines. 

 

But even so, the green shirt waist dress (Simplicity 3848) does present an 'attitude' and bring style to the garment presentation.  The more simple red candy striped dress in the first example (Simplicity 3857) uses a quick repeat of the figure stance for the second figure which allows that illustrator to 'whip' out the illustration quickly.  The white blouse in that illustration is shaded with an india ink wash (black ink, diluted to grey with water). 

The dark green sheer shirtwaist in the lower illustration also uses a wash, this time water color or gouache is diluted with water so that it appears light and sheer like the fabric.  In the first set of illustrations, the magazine illustrator presented a more dramatic interpretation of this dress, with bold red gathers and a the bodice lining that is clearly defined.

Envelope illustrations provided the backbone of the pattern industry throughout the 1950's.  Inspiring to their readership, more dramatic illustrations gave a woman's magazine the opportunity to suppliment expensive fashion photography with dreamy illustrations for their readers to view. 

Since I posted this popular article, I have added more fashion illustrations from the 1950's. You may want to check these out as well:
Cocktail dresses, 1958
Back Views of cocktail dresses, 1958
Dagmar, the illustrator
Count Rene Bouet-Willaumez (RBW)