'Fashion should be discussed enthusiastically, and sanely and above all without poetry, without literature,' she told Morand, he recounts in the book. The book hears Chanel's own thoughts on everything from her greatest loves, to her most famous creations - and as you might expect from expect from the fiery innovator, she doesn't hold back her opinions. Morand - who wrote the book when he met Chanel in a hotel in St Moritz in 1946, where she shared her philosophies and stories with him - was a close friend of the designer and writes from a privileged position within her inner circle. Received enthusiastically by critics on its release, and billed as 'Chanel on Chanel,' the book goes inside the designer's mind - and this reworked version has been well-received by the house of Chanel. & Barbara Hulanicki.KARL LAGERFELD has lent his illustrative talents to The Allure of Chanel, a book by Paul Morand - originally released in English in 2008 without his sketches - about the woman who founded the label, Coco Chanel. 100 Years of Fashion Illustration London: Laurence King Publishing, 2007 Pel, M. In the fifty years since the founding of The Costume Society much has come and gone in the world of fashion, and it is our pleasure to trawl the past, but wouldn’t it be lovely if we could resurrect some of that past? Illustration is a case in point - in a world where photoshop reigns supreme (and is arguably more fantasy than reality anyway), wouldn’t a return to illustration usher in a new age of magic and fantasy in what can sometimes feel like the cold world of fashion?įurther reading: Blackman, C.

Bernais (fig.6) and Bobby Hillson (fig.7) have left a wonderful visual record of 1960s fashion in their illustrations, which allow us to understand so much about the culture of that world. Other illustrators, including René Gruau (fig.4), Antonio Lopez (fig.5), E. The massive eyes, narrow shoulders and pointy chins of Hulanicki illustration really did compliment the Biba aesthetic, adding drama and mystique to the clothes (fig.3). Of course, the illustrations and designs she produced during the Biba epoch now form part of an instantly recognisable 1960s canon of visual culture. I think what’s appealing about these illustrations, from a twenty-first century point of view, is that there is no explicitly prescribed ideal of feminine beauty the women in the drawing aren’t real women to whom we feel pressed to compare ourselves, and perhaps this is why illustration is such an effective means of disseminating, and indeed selling fashion.įurther thinking about 1960s fashion illustration led me to the legendary Barbara Hulanicki, who began her career (rather successfully) as a fashion illustrator for various British newspapers and magazines. 2 shows a Romeo drawing of three girls dressed in Marion Donaldson dresses, walking an elegant black whippet. Another artist who drew Donaldson dresses was Romeo, of whom I know nothing, but who really imparted a sense of fun and personality into his illustrations of the clothes. I found the Gray illustrations in the Glasgow Herald, and it became clear when trawling through other newspapers’ fashion pages, that illustration was still a powerful force in the fashion industry of the 1960s. The illustration somehow made the dresses seem like mythical objects, and perhaps because of the mystery of illustration - filtered as it is through the imagination of the artist, rather than through the lens of the photographer - I was very drawn to these particular dresses, much more than I am to dresses of which I’ve only seen photographs. It was like this when I was researching Glasgow’s fashion scene in the 1960s I came across an illustration of two Marion Donaldson dresses from 1969 (the ‘Rosetti’ and the ‘Justine’) drawn by the celebrated Glaswegian artist, Alasdair Gray (fig. Because, I suppose, it’s something we’re no longer used to seeing on an everyday basis, when confronted by a fashion report illustrated with a natty line drawing or a confection in watercolour, it suddenly seems so much more glamorous, more of a fantasy - which fashion really should be. One of the striking things about the visuals of 1960s fashion editorial and advertising is the dominance of illustration over photography. Drawn to the 1960s: The magic of fashion illustration

Vogue sketch fashion illustration