Fashion illustrator David Downton has influenced my work. He has done illustrations for V magazine, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, The Times, The New York Times, and the Telegraph magazine.
His commercial client list includes, Chanel, Dior, Tiffany's New York, Harrods, Estee Lauder, and the V&A museum. As well as that he has done portraits of some of the worlds most beautiful and iconic women including Dita Von Teese, Rachel Weiz, Paloma Picasso. One of his recent jobs was to create four illustrated covers of Cate Blanchette for Australian Vogue.
In the latest projects I started looking at fashion illustrators, one of my favourites was Rene Gruau. Rene's illustration have had a massive influence on modern day fashion advertising and photography.
Rene Gruau settled down in Paris in 1924 and embarked on his career as a fashion illustrator. His earliest drawings were published in Italy, Germany and England. From 1935 to 1939, he worked with Femina, Marie-Claire, L'Officiel and other fashion magazines. In 1947, his friend Christian Dior entrusted him with drawing the MISS DIOR advertisement and the famous bar dress. The New Look was born.
1948 he worked for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue, before becoming the exclusive artist for Flair magazine.
1949 he devoted his time to advertising, Rouge Baiser, Lido, Moulin Rouge ect.
1950 onwards he still creates drawings for ELLE, VOGUE, MADAM AND FIGARO.
Gaultier's first collection was in 1976, his style dates from 1981. He has long been known as the 'bad boy' of french fashion.
Jean Paul Gaultier produced sculptured costumes for Madonna during the nineties with her infamous cone bra for her blonde ambition tour,
and designed the wardrobe for her coffesions tour in 2006.
What brought Gaultier's success was the advent of his haute couture line in 1997. As the 90's wore on and the styles began to change,
his ready to wear style followed through, and today he known by having mastered the looks of chiffon gowns, trench coats and pants suits.
Gaultier's spring 2009 collection was influenced by the visual style of singer Klaus Nomi and he used Nomi's recording of 'Cold Song' in his runway show.
Aswell as being a fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier is known for a popular line of perfumes. His first fragrance, 'Classique', a womens floral
perfume was introduced in 1993. And a mens perfume 2 years later called 'Le Male'. Both successful.
I took inspiration from the well-known brand D&G. Milan fashion week, Domenico Dolce and Steffano Gabbana, created their first women's collection in 1985 in Milano. 2 years later they launched their leotard line, and in 1989 started designing underwear and swimming costumes. They started to export thier products to Japan and the USA where they found their own showroom in 1990. The same year they showed their mens collections. They launched their first perfume in 1992, Dolce & Gabbana.
The most famous celebrities are huge fans of Dolce & Gabbana, but the two work most closley with, Madonna, Whitney Houston and Kylie Minogue.
Dolce & Gabbana are led by the motto, "The bolder the better! The sexier the more successful!"
Throughout the projects I have looked at designers for ideas such as Christian Dior.
In Paris July 5th 2010, Christian Dior showed his couture collection. Part of Dior's research involved studying real flowers, e.g. spending an hour watching the light change on a tulip.
The collection had bright bold colours, the whole show was directed with the help of John Galliano. The plastic bags on top of their head represents a bouquet of flowers. In the eccentric world of fashion this would be considered as evening wear.
This flower based collection I used for my natural and manmade project, I made a one shoulder dress with flower decoration.
Recycle, Sweet Wrapper Dress,
Organic, Waterfall Dress,
Pattern and Print, Perfume Bottle and Gift Box Printed Skirt,
FMP Mock, Egyptian Dress
Classic Album Cover, 1920's flapper Dress,
Natural And Manmade, Flower dress,
WW2 Project, Apron And T-Dress.
