London College of Fashion – Go Figure: New Fashion Illustration was the second in a series of exhibitions that showcased the brightest young talent across the field of fashion. This exhibition brought together more than sixty works by thirteen international fashion illustrators, who work in a variety of media, from the digital to the hand-drawn via the physical.
Most of the featured illustrators brought influences from other disciplines including fashion design, graphic design, photography and film, which provide an insight into a creative field that is truly multifaceted. What bound this group together was the level of attention to detail, craftsmanship and execution, demonstrated through traditional and innovative approaches to materials and process.
Last chance to see Go Figure: New Fashion Illustration exhibition this week, listing here http://t.co/MdenUExX
— AmeliaGregory (@AmeliaGregory) 10 Luglio 2012
Richard Kilroy’s exquisite hand-drawn menswear illustrations demonstrate a keen eye for detail as well a sense of minimalism and space. Artaksiniya’s elaborate use of felt tips, ballpoint pens and three-dimensional layers creates a set of distinctive fashionable characters. Tara Dougans’ painstakingly crafted works have a haunting and deeply personal quality. Her process includes intricately detailed pencil drawings of sartorial minutiae, but also bold paint strokes and digital techniques.
#GoFigure makes it onto @vogue_italia web via @illustratori and his scarves for #Pinko http://t.co/LNyEORdf @LCFPressOffice @LigayaVandA
— Polona Dolzan (@PollyAnders) 15 Maggio 2012
Hanna Mueller combines ink and aquarelle techniques to create striking portraits that convey a youthfully defiant attitude. Jarno Kettunen’s live action drawings are created backstage at high-fashion shows. Rosie McGuinness’ croquis-style line drawings intuitively capture the movement of fabric and silhouette. Fashion designer and illustrator Zoya Smirnova’s ‘straight-up’ drawings of street-style menswear are a distinctive take on individual style. Lesley Barnes’ illustrations reveal a keen sense of visual movement, pattern and colour, which point to her background in film and animation.
Cristian Grossi’s ‘Insecta’ series takes the illustrated image a step further through the use of animated gifs.
Finnish illustrator Laura Laine’s rigorously detailed and delicate hand-drawn illustrations gain a sense of dynamism through her use of posture and styling. Ingela Och Vi is a Swedish duo who create what they call ‘illustration photography’, mixtures of set design, fabric swatches and drawing, which are then photographed as final pieces. Fashion designer and illustrator Eugenia Alejos playfully refers to her 3D collages as ‘organised chaos’, combining texture, fabrics and bold brush-strokes to achieve a multidimensional effect. Sabine Pieper’s work plays on different textures by combining and digitally manipulating scanned fabrics and original line drawings. Go Figure: New Fashion Illustration was curated by Ligaya Salazar and Polona Dolžan. The exhibition series was devised by Magdalene Keaney.
