I BEGAN MY JOURNEY AS AN ARTIST AS A YOUNG GIRL, BUT I NEVER EXPECTED TO SHARE MY WORK WITH SO MANY PEOPLE.
A
rt brings me joy. I have loved both the visual and performing arts since I was a little girl growing up in Quincy, Massachusetts, near Boston. Throughout my school years, I was involved in drawing, piano, dance and theater. Although neither of my parents were artists (they both work in business), they supported my passion for creating new things, and they recognized that expression gave me purpose and an outlet for my imagination.
When I was younger, my mom often brought me to museums. The first artist I fell in love with was Mary Cassatt: Her work made me realize it was possible to pursue a career as a female artist. And I remember being awestruck at seeing Jackie Kennedy’ s wedding gown, designed by Ann Lowe, on exhibit at the Kennedy Library in 2003. I also loved looking at fashion magazines. I would constantly clip pages and cover my textbooks with their images. When I was about 9 or 10, I began taking art lessons at a local art association, where my instructor was an oil painter who taught me many of the fundamentals that I still use in my current practice.
My passion for art continued throughout high school, where I was accepted into a creative arts group called the Renaissance Program. Every afternoon, the program ’ s visual arts group explored different media, from acrylics and drawing to plaster and ceramics. It inspired me to study art in college, where I planned to major in interior design. It was during my first year at Endicott College that I discovered fashion illustration by accident.
I never had an interest in designing clothes, although I had an appreciation for fashion. A course in interior rendering required us to use illustration markers to
sketch home interiors. I learned how to sketch textures like wood, fabric, carpet and glass. It made me want to challenge myself to draw fashion-inspired illustrations with this newly developed skill. My roommates and friends would envision what their ideal bridal gown would look like, then I would make them come to life with my markers. I still love painting now and then, but there’ s something about the range of value and texture you can achieve with a marker that I found really attractive. As a bonus, the markers are much neater, which makes them easier to travel with!
I’ ve always loved art, and how it can shape our lives in so many ways.
In college, I had no idea what I was drawing was considered “fashion illustration” until a professor pointed it out to me. That professor also introduced me to the work of David Downton, an acclaimed fashion illustrator who has worked with Chanel, Dior, Tiffany and other iconic design houses. From there I was hooked on finding a way to marry my two favorite interests: art and fashion. I switched my major to studio art, which taught me skills like traditional figure
drawing, color theory and graphic design principles, giving me a foundational understanding of the art concepts that I still use today.
Still, it took me a while to see myself as an artist. After I graduated, I worked in education, as a paraprofessional. I also bartended, and during my breaks, I sketched in my notebook, or on the napkins at the bar. Eventually, around 2013, I took the artwork that had accumulated into a portfolio and started posting it on Instagram, and something surprising happened: People around the world started following me. From New York to London to Australia and beyond, my social media followers grew exponentially.
My social media presence exposed my work to brands and designers whom I greatly admired, as well as people who were interested in buying my whimsical sketches for their homes. At that time, Instagram wasn ’t leveraged by brands and blogs as it is today. With a little bit of good timing, and a fierce passion for what I do, I was able to grow a significant following within a few months. Suddenly, there was a demand for my artwork that I never expected, and it started to grow organically into a business The art component comes naturally to me, but I have had to work on and learn the business side of things. Despite the stress and challenges of my work, I’ m grateful. The Instagram exposure has helped me create a career as a full-time artist.
People seem to have connected with my early art because many of the drawings depicted an idyllic representation of a glamorous life they might wish to have. That idea is also why I personally drew illustrations in that style at first it was an escape from my otherwise glamour-free life! The figures I drew had exaggerated proportions and were more “high fashion” than a majority of my work today. My first trip to New York Fashion Week was the most magical thing I’ ve ever experienced. Seeing a garment catch the wind while on the runway is so different than seeing it on a computer screen. Being backstage with the models and their teams gave me a lens into what makes the front line tick.
It takes plenty of hard work and dedication to achieve success (but it’ s worth every moment!).
Today, my work is always evolving. As I’ ve expanded my themes and proportions, people say things to me like, “I see myself in your girls, ” or “This
illustration reminds me of me and my friends. ” Comments like these are so rewarding because I’ ve now made it a priority to draw more realistic bodies, hoping more people will be able to see themselves in the drawings. The creativity is still the part of the work I love most. I find the experience of putting pen to paper or stylus to tablet quite meditative and rewarding. I also love meeting with other artists and discussing their processes, sharing ideas and techniques. While I’ ve worked with corporate clients like Saks Fifth Avenue, Disney and others, a lot of my followers are aspiring artists curious about my process and learning how they can improve their own work. When people ask me if they need to go to art school to be an illustrator, I say no—but I advise them that art courses certainly helped my understanding and approach to my work. These questions have informed the type of content I create, so a lot of what I share now is educational. My access to arts education has made me an advocate for funding for the arts in schools. With that said, it’ s never too late to learn: With so many great resources online or in print, it is possible to teach yourself art of any kind from home! With social media, it’ s wonderful that artists can connect with one another in ways we never could before.
You can transfer your artwork to any number of forms, from wall hangings to phone cases!
My love for art and sharing my work and experience with others is, in fact, what prompted me to write this book. I believe art is a skill that you can pick up or return to at any time. Focusing on what brings you pleasure is essential to selfcare, which we all need now more than ever. With this book, I hope others will be able to discover a genre of art that I love so much and that drives my passion for the creative process.
Holly Nichols
CHAPTER 1
WHAT IS Modern Fashion ILLUSTRATION?
A FORGOTTEN ART FORM finds new appeal today thanks to social media, which has made it instantly accessible, shareable and personable
The Long History of DRAWING DESIGNS
FROM THE COURT OF KING LOUIS XIV TO MODERN-DAY MAGAZINE SPREADS, ARTISTIC RENDERINGS CONTINUE TO INSPIRE.
What should I wear? It’ s a question that probably has been asked from the time human society began to evolve from hunter-gatherer tribes into more complex civilizations around 11,000 years ago. Then, “the wish to distinguish oneself from the other members of the group; the desire to attract attention or sympathy; to specify the age group, the tribal classification or the status of the individual, bachelor, married or widowed, ” began to emerge, writes François Boucher, author of 20,000 Years of Fashion. Thirteen millennia later, those same queries occupy us every morning when we stand in front of our closets, though today we have many more influences affecting our choices.
The earliest images of clothing on pottery, small statuettes and cave paintings weren ’t aiming to influence anyone or market anything. Not only was there no mass media, but over the centuries, up until the Middle Ages, garments remained remarkably unchanged: Both men and women primarily wore long cloaks tied at the neck over simple long tunics, Alice Mackrell points out in An Illustrated History of Fashion. And before the invention of the printing press in 1454, the only way information about new looks could be transmitted was via drawings, paintings or in-person observation. That necessarily meant that “keeping up on the trends” was a diversion only for the very rich, sophisticated and well-traveled.
But as with so many other things, the printing press ushered in a revolution in fashion. “It heralded a new visual source of documentation: printed costume books, ” Mackrell notes. The illustrations in these books “showed fashionable ways of dressing, and forecasted what the fashionable style would be like in the near future, ” she adds.
There was also a surprisingly intense interest in what people in other countries and in previous eras wore, which spurred a whole genre of books with fashion plates of “exotic” styles: One of the most remarkable was a 1590 book by the Venice-based Cesare Vecellio with 420 woodcut illustrations of styles from all over Europe, as well as Turkey, Asia and Africa. (A copy in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’ s collection can be viewed online at metmuseum.org.)
Images like these drawings from Italian artist Cesare Vecellio in 1590 used woodcut illustrations to showcase styles.
Throughout his long reign, King Louis XIV (pictured above and on opposite page) made fashion de rigueur—and did much to support its growth in France.
A FORMAL INDUSTRY
Known for his elaborate personal dress and that of his courtiers, King Louis XIV of France was also the first person to realize the moneymaking potential of fashion, and he did much to support it. Illustration de la mode took a quantum leap forward during his long reign (1638–1715).
“Luxury was Louis’ New Deal: The furniture, textile, clothing and jewelry industries he established not only provided jobs for his subjects, but made France the world’ s leader in taste and technology, ” Kimberly ChrismanCampbell wrote in The Atlantic. For the first time, fashions changed seasonally, she notes. To promote French products, “Louis subsidized the production of [illustrated] fashion plates by major French artists and engravers in order to promote French luxury goods and culture, both at home and abroad. ”
Assembled in cahiers, or notebooks, these plates were spectacularly detailed, and spectacularly expensive intended only for the aristocracy and the richest of the rich. Another novel form of fashion promotion weren ’t drawings at all, but poupées—dolls dressed in the most up-to-date looks. They were sent from Paris
to London and other European capitals every month, so women could keep up on the latest styles at Versailles. Though also expensive and harder to reproduce, they allowed a close-up view of the style, tailoring and textiles used at the time.
Drawings from the early to mid-1800s reflected European trends.
Hand-colored engravings of elaborate dresses often appeared in the pages of French fashion magazines.
THE BIRTH OF MAGAZINES
Keeping up with the latest looks was made more accessible to a wider audience with the proliferation of magazines in Europe. They began to be published sporadically in France in the 18th century (then copied by English publishers for distribution there), but it was really in the 19th century that the publications developed into a form we ’d most likely recognize today. Previously straightforward drawings of clothes evolved into formats that are still used today, and were published alongside stories on culture and etiquette. These included such features as:
THE LOOK OF THE DAY
Well, every few days…Journal des dames et des modes, launched in 1797, was published every five days. It had hand-colored fashion plates and detailed text descriptions, which proved helpful to the tailors and dressmakers who were copying the looks.
CELEBRITY MODELS
Journal des dames et des modes also represented another advance: “The fashion plates were [drawn] from life, and the models were easily recognizable by those who moved in society, ” writes Mackrell.
TWIRL!
Horace Vernet, a Frenchman who published a series of books of fashion engravings between 1810 and 1818, was responsible for another innovation: Showcasing both the front and back views of the styles
Copper plates, which had been used since the 1600s, allowed the printing of only about 1,500 good impressions, but the invention of steel-engraved plates in the early 19th century allowed much larger print runs, Mackrell notes. This proved to be convenient timing, as demand for fashion magazines was skyrocketing.
(Clockwise from top left) Magazines like Harper’ s Bazaar, Vogue and Godey’ s Lady’ s Book showcased different styles through an American lens.
AMERICAN STYLE
The first U.S. fashion magazine, Graham’ s American Monthly Magazine of Literature, Art and Fashion, was first published in Philadelphia in 1826, according to Mackrell. It was a middling success, at best. But four years later, the much more influential Godey’ s Lady’ s Book was launched and it would enjoy tremendous popularity over its 60-plus year run. Its editor, Sarah Josepha Hale, employed local artists to redraw plates from (mainly) French and English sources. To cater to her American audience, many of the drawings in Godey’ s were simplified, more-affordable versions of the European styles (many of which were worn by two of the biggest influencers of the day, Queen Victoria of England and Empress Eugénie of France). As their wealth grew, affluent American women began traveling to Paris starting in the late 1860s. Back home, they began to realize that the clothes in
Godey’ s were not as sophisticated as the originals they’d seen in Europe. To cater to these chic, high-society women, Harper’ s Bazaar was launched in 1867. Its detailed, black-and-white engravings “were of European origin but selected with an American audience in mind…. It was the best source for high fashion in America until Vogue appeared on the scene in 1892, ” writes Mackrell
Then, in 1909, visionary publisher Condé Nast bought a small weekly newspaper called Vogue and transformed it into the most influential American fashion magazine ever. Published twice a month, “it enjoyed a distinguished place as the focal point of fashion information, ” Mackrell notes.
As American women grew more sophisticated about fashion, they sought out influences in magazines like Vogue and in the popular “Gibson Girls” drawings.
From the 1890s until World War I, Charles Dana Gibson’ s “Gibson Girls” were equally influential. This long-running series of pen-and-ink drawings, published in Life magazine, were the embodiment of an American archetype that came to be known as the “New Woman. ” Gibson based the images on his wife and her four sisters, all of whom were athletic but sophisticated, ladylike yet with a soupçon of sexiness. They had hourglass figures and glamorous, upswept hairstyles, and set the standard for fashionable women of the era.
ART DECO LOOKS, MID-CENTURY STYLE AND THE TRENDS
TODAY
Harper ’ s Bazaar and Erté (the pseudonym for a Russian-born French artist whose real name was Romain de Tirtoff) were practically synonymous from 1915, when he joined the magazine’ s staff, until 1937. During Erté’ s tenure, he created more than 200 covers for the magazine. His designs reflected a number of the art styles popular at the time, including the geometric play of cubism, the bold colors of fauvism and the “exotic” motifs of Asian and Middle Eastern countries; today they are most closely aligned with the art deco look, according to Mackrell.
The exotic dress of Erté’ s “Onset of Spring, ” 1929
The art deco drawing “The Love, ” 1929, by Erté
Antonio Lopez’ s sketch of a Charles James outfit, 1972
Lopez sketched this ensemble from James in 1968.
As the 20th century progressed, fashion illustration was increasingly supplanted by photography; technological advances made it less expensive to print photos, and their ability to show the details of the clothes found favor
among designers, editors and readers alike. But fashion illustration didn’t disappear: One artist who remained popular was Antonio Lopez, whose sensual, chic work appeared in Women’ s Wear Daily (where he interned after attending FIT), Vogue, Harper’ s Bazaar, Elle and Interview. Active from 1960 to the 1980s, he also worked closely with the influential American designer Charles James, and later with Karl Lagerfeld in Paris. (Lagerfeld, a talented artist himself, did elegant, somewhat decadent drawings for Chanel advertisements during his tenure as creative director of the house.)
Sidelined for nearly a century, a new generation of illustrators is now finding a home on Instagram and other social media platforms. Unlike their predecessors, their work is being recognized for its own artistic merits, not just as a way of communicating current styles. In a world of photoshopped images, the handcraftsmanship and unique vision of these images is attracting new fans. Artist Jean-Philippe Delhomme whose quirky drawings in gouache accompanied a column in the newly launched French Glamour beginning in 1988 had his work appear for many years in ads for the iconic Barneys New York More recently, he was recruited by the Musée d’Orsay in Paris home to a worldrenowned collection of Renoirs, van Goghs and Monets to do illustrations for its Instagram account. It’ s just more validation that fashion illustration is indeed an art form that still has the power to influence, charm and set trends. Anne Marie O’Connor
Your tool kit may include digital technology or just markers, pencils and paper.
