David Crystal: Red Dress from 1959

This is the first of several David Crystal magazine advertisements from 1959 for dresses created in knits. They have such gorgeous illustrations in primary colors that I had to share and a Holiday red seems like the best place to start! (more to come)

p.s. The illustration is original, but the graphics are mine.

Rene Bouche: Fashion Illustration from 1956

It's time to be thinking ahead about the holidays, so I am posting this fashion illustration as a reminder to all of us: plan ahead!

This terrific 50s fashion illustration is by Rene(RR) Bouche and it certainly gets one in the mood for holiday elegance and sophistication. For me, while I personally won't try to re-capture this look, a rich red pashmina might be just the thing to add to my wardrobe this year.

Here's the full 1956 illustration, so you can see the rest of this page:

Dagmar: Fashion Illustratior

Dagmar Freuchen-Gale, was a fashion illustrator for ‘Vogue’ and ‘Harper’s Bazaar’ magazines during the 1940’s and 50’s.

She was born Dagmar Muller, 1908 in Denmark. Trained as an artist in Europe, she arrived in New York in 1938 where she would later find work as a fashion illustrator. In addition to her artwork, she taught for 20 years at the Art Students League until the late 1960’s when she returned to Denmark to retire.

Her first husband was killed in the Second World War. Following that, in 1945 she was famously married to the Danish Arctic explorer Peter Freuchen. The couple is captured in a well known photo by Irving Penn with her husband wearing a massive fur costume. She lived in Connecticut from 1945 until 1963 (Freuchen had died in 1957) in a house that overlooked the sea.

In addition to being an illustrator and teacher, she was a cook who prepared exotic dishes. Dagmar wrote a cook book titled “Cookbook of the Seven Seas” in 1968. The title of this book being a parody of a piece with a similar title by Freuchen. From 1961 - 1969 she was married to New York lawyer Henry Gale. By the early 1970’s she had returned to Denmark where she lived until she passed away in 1991.

Editorial illustrations, Spring 1957

RBW: Count Rene Bouet-Willaumez, Fashion Illustrations: June 1950

The three fashion illustrations here are editorial drawings from the June 1950 issue of "Vogue" magazine painted by Count Rene Bouet-Willaumez (RBW). He was a top fashion illustrator from the pre-WWII era, along with Carl Erickson, better known as "Eric", Christian Berard and Rene Bouche. Having built a strong reputation during the 1930's, RBW would continue to provide drawings for Vogue and Bazaar into the early 1950's.

His loose, Asian inspired brush work illustation style was part of the "Expressionist" movement. He was proficient in creating a dynamic illustration using black india ink on rough cotton paper. The 1950's would mark the end of fashion illustration editorials in glossy fashion magazines. Photography moved quickly into the dominant editorial position.

Drawing from a live model wearing the dress, his technique can be seen in the use of a wet paper to flow on the gray shaded areas. When that had dried, he painted the illustration, probably using a tapered asian paint brush or similar shaped water color brush dipped in deep black india ink. The textured areas are 'dry brush' painted with a brush that has had the ink pressed out, so the brush is damp. This style had a sensitive line that was popular through out the magazine and newspaper industry during this era.