Sketching pencils and puff sleeves

Recently, I've become very intrigued with fashion illustration. As a girl who is an art minor, took about 1000 drawing classes in high school and wishes with all her might that her college had a fashion program, it's so alluring to me.

I was going to post just about fashion illustration, but I decided to be more specific and write specifically of Marguerite Sauvage. When I first looked up fashion illustration online, her photos were the ones that I immediately found so captivating.

This is an excerpt about her from another website :
"Sauvage creates an intriguing intimacy between animal and human, reverie and reality. In her world, lady-beast hybrids are clothed in puff-sleeve jackets. Imaginative and dreamy, it's like Narnia unfolded in le Marais."

Personally, I love the whimsy present in her work. Because truly, that's part of what I love about fashion: it's playful, imaginative essence that makes me feel like a kid again, in only the best ways. Fashion illustration does that even more for me, reminiscent of the pictures in a picture book, only more sophisticated.

Furthermore, she has inspired me to start sketching various outfits with pretty shapes and pleasurable colors. I'm starting small, sketching beautiful fashion spread and trying to do them justice. Maybe some day I'll post some here.

Some of my favorite of her illustrations are pictured below:



A gallery of her work can be found on her website.

xo

France, frills & the 80s

The June issue of Elle magazine had a general rundown of fall/winter 09/10 fashion shows, and from it I discovered the fabulousness that is the Louis Vuitton women's ready to wear fall/winter 09/10 line. I haven't ever had an especially great interest in Louis Vuitton in the past, but I do love Marc Jacobs, who designed the line.

He referred to it as being inspired by "all those great French muses of the late eighties" specifically naming Victoire de Castellane, Marie Seznec, and Inès de la Fressange.

The full collection is wonderful, with lots of ruffles, lace, feminine sashes and black with bursts of color, and worth checking out, but here are some of my favorites:


and my favorite:


Celebrities & magazines have already been seen showcasing the collection, including everyone from Madonna to Rihanna to Elle & Vogue Deutsch.

Three of the looks were worn by various people to the costume gala (Kerry Washington, Madonna & Leighton Meeser, who is pictured)

Here is a photo from a Vogue Deutsch editorial featuring Heidi Klum in one of the looks:


Also, here, in a photo of Chloe Sevigny, from an editorial in the June 2009 issue of Elle, a envy inducing sash from Louis Vuitton makes the outfit:

I really want a sash like that or the one in my favorite look from the runway.

For the love of wayfarers

I, like much of trendy-kid america, have a more-than-mild obsession with wayfarers.
Why do we all love them so damn much, you may be wondering. Why are they so popular? Why are people paying over a hundred dollars for some hard plastic that you know costs so little to manufacture? What is the secret behind this cultural phenomenon?

I have some answers. Well, theories anyway.

They are iconic.

The likes of JFK, Audrey Hepburn, Andy Warhol and, to get a little more modern, Tom Cruise in Risky Business have worn them. Therefore, the current trend has an iconic past that makes the trend have some merit. What fashion-conscious girl has not idolized Breakfast at Tiffany's? And Jackie O may have been all about the big sunglasses, but I'm pretty sure that JFK is both one of the most loved and one of the most drool worthy presidents we've ever had. And what indie kid doesn't claim to just adore Andy Warhol? And who has not heard of the film Risky Business? no one. No one is unaware of the iconic nature of wayfarers, even if they only know subconsciously. And the very reason for celebrity endorsements is because they think that if they wear what celebrities wear, it will make them cool. And maybe it will.

The celebrity endorsement continues.

Celebrities also know about the if-i-mimic-them-maybe-I'll-be-iconic-too, and they may care even more than you do about image, because they're in the business of images. Or maybe they just like the way that they look. Either way, the likes of the Twilight cast, Rachel Bilson, Kirsten Dunst, Micha Barton, Sienna Miller, Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen, Brandon Flowers (of the Killers), the gossip girl cast and just about 1000 other celebrities walking around in them does a lot to make the public want to go buy them. Seriously, rayban doesn't even need to advertise wayfarers at this point- what better celebrity endorsement than celebrities pay us to wear our sunglasses.

We love to recycle trends.
They were popular in the fifties. Then again in the eighties. And we love to recycle trends. Or have you not noticed the massive amounts of neon and spandex worn around these days that never would have been deemed acceptable five years ago.

They look fing cool.
Rayban wayfarers will make you look cooler. It's more or less fact. Between their iconic status and what they do to your face, you will look cooler. so stop resisting and go spend your last paycheck on a pair.

Now, which wayfarers should you get, you may ask?
classic black ones. they are the best ones. that's it.
I almost bought white ones and then I came to my senses and bought the black pair that I sport daily.
black goes with everything and the black ones are the most flattering somehow.
once you already have a black pair, you get then get all crazy and go for the really oversized ones
or some colored ones
or whatever. but get the classic black ones first.
anyway, these are the ones I'm considering for my second pair:


xo