Backstory: Where have all the great fashion illustrators gone?
Winter Fashion
Written by cjhammon in Features, Life in Yesterday's Clothes, Style
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The English author James Laver wrote things I’ve never heard of: the novel-turned- musical Nymph Errant (1933) and poems like A Stitch In Time and Love’s Progress. When he wasn’t writing fiction, Laver was a curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum who supplemented his income by writing magazine articles among other things.
It was his work as a fashion historian that brought him to my attention. Evidently, his background as an art curator made him a fanatic about accurately dating fashion images. And that’s how, in 1937, he came to co-host a TV program called Clothes Line, the first ever to cover fashion history. That same year, he published this composite of the entire fashion cycle:
Laver’s Law
Indecent – 10 years before its time
Shameless – 5 years before its time
Daring – 1 year before its time
Smart – current fashion
Dowdy – 1 year after its time
Hideous – 10 years after its time
Ridiculous – 20 years after its time
Amusing – 30 years after its time
Quaint – 50 years after its time
Charming – 70 years after its time
Romantic – 100 years after its time
Beautiful – 150 years after its time
Where would vintage fashion fit in Laver’s Law?
Has there ever been a time such as now, where we can style ourselves in vintage clothes and still hit Laver’s sweet spot––Smart? Here’s the conundrum: history has to become old before we can long to revisit it! Could we be the first generation to dig out our grandmother’s dresses and make them seem chic again?
In Laver’s Amusing category, check out this sketch for an L. Strauss ad, which appeared in the Indianapolis Star in 1974. Fashionistas, in those days, clothing ads were nothing like today’s four-color sale bills. Newspaper printing presses were still sort of primitive by today’s standards and many stores relied on sketches like this to show their wares.
When I found this ad in a Lafayette, Indiana antique shop, I time-traveled back to my freshman year of college. In my printing technology class, I learned to set type using letterpress type and Linotype machines—the predecessors to offset lithography printing and computerized typesetting. Yes, I’m that old!
Two fabulous fashion illustrators
Vintage clothes and vinyl records have made a strong comeback. But unless you count the occasional J. Peterman catalog, fashion illustrations haven’t been used to sell clothes since the late 1970s.
If you want to see some really great fashion illustrations, check out the work of: 1) my friend Jan Graham-McMillen at Fort Smith Stylista and 2) my wannabe friend Anne Bray at SpyGirl. Both are extremely talented artists and writers!
Where have all the fashion illustrators gone? And what are they doing now? Who is your favorite fashion illustrator/blogger?
4 comments
May 17, 2013 at 10:27 am
Another amazing illustrator is Heather of the Style Confessions-
I am not sure illustrations are the way to go in the post post modern era- as we have technology that didn’t exist when pen and paper was the smart phone camera of the day. Soon, you can expect hologram fashion runways where we can conjure up whole collections and order at whim from the comfort of our sofa chair.
Great post!
May 18, 2013 at 8:06 am
Wow! Thanks for the mention!
Two current blogging fashion illustrators first come to mind — they both inspired me to resuscitate my skills learned at OTIS in the 80s:
Katie Rogers of Paperfashion: http://paperfashion.net/
Richard Haines of What I Saw Today: http://designerman-whatisawtoday.blogspot.com/
My good friend Heather gave herself a sketch-every-day-in-April challenge here: http://heatherfonseca.com/heathers-design-blog/
Others in my reader:
Nancy Zhang, Sea of Fertility http://www.xiaoxizhang.com/
Katie Cadamatre, Sketchbook Closet http://www.sketchbookcloset.com/
Linda, Little Tin Soldier http://littletinsoldier.com/
Fifi Lapin http://fifi-lapin.blogspot.com/
May 21, 2013 at 2:06 pm
Wow! How nice of you to comment…and what a nice list to share with readers. Thanks again and again, Anne.
May 21, 2013 at 2:09 pm
Thanks, Bella. I’ll have to check out Heather. Holograph fashion runways, eh?