Drawing attention

James Jean's Prada Nymph. Photo / Supplied

To celebrate the 50th anniversary issue of Australian Vogue, there's no A-list celebrity photographed by Annie Leibovitz on the cover, and no edgy photo shoot featuring the latest It-girl model. Instead, the fashion glossy has gone old school, with four cover options each featuring an illustration of Cate Blanchett - a move that's far bolder and more interesting than the usual celebrity cover.

The special anniversary covers, hand-drawn by renowned London based illustrator David Downton, hark back to the days before photography took over as fashion's medium of choice, when illustration was the only way to communicate ideas and garments to readers. "I have to salute Vogue Australia for coming up with the idea ... and for following it through," says Downton. "An illustrated cover is a rarity these days, so to do four felt like a leap of faith." The cover process with Blanchett, who Downton describes as a "proper movie star", was quite the production: a day to do the drawings at the Dorchester in London; hair, makeup, clothes from Balenciaga and McQueen. "But to be honest, in the end it is still about the simple act of drawing ... capturing the moment."

Illustrations can often capture fashion in a way that's completely different to photography - the look is softer, more poetic and old-fashioned. Think of old Vogue covers with iconic works from artists like Carl Erickson, Rene R. Bouche and Helen Dryden, designer's sketches that form the seed of every collection, the drawings on the packs of retro sewing patterns, or even the charming illustrations in vintage girls' annuals. Laird Borrelli, author of Fashion Illustration Now, wrote that, "photographs, no matter how altered or retouched, will always have some association with reality and by association, truth. I like to think of [fashion illustrations] as prose poems and having more fictional narratives. They are more obviously filtered through an individual vision than photos". Downton agrees. "Illustrators are not designers, it is our job to interpret a designer's work. You strive to represent something faithfully, but also personally."

"A good fashion illustration says something about a moment in time. The way we looked - or wanted to look - and how we wanted to live. The great fashion artists have been able to capture the moment every bit as successfully as the great photographers," says Downton, "For me, [famed fashion illustrator] Rene Gruau is more than the equal of Avedon. Fashion illustration is only superficially superficial."

But however charming these illustrations, photography soon became popular in magazines and beyond, playing a major part in the decline in popularity of fashion illustration. But recently illustrative works have slowly been making somewhat of a comeback, popping up in magazines (Australian Vogue's cover, Curvy, an annual all-girl art book from the team behind Yen magazine, Louise Cuckow's illustrations in Fashion Quarterly and previously on the cover of Viva), becoming increasingly popular online (Garance Dore and Fifi Lapin are two examples; as is Ruben Toledo with his watercolour illustrations for DailyCandy.com), as well as featuring within fashion itself. Illustrated bunny Fifi Lapin - the online creation of an anonymous London based artist - recently teamed up with LeSportsac to produce a range of bags featuring her drawings, and LA-based illustrator Danny Roberts' work has featured on bags and T-Shirts for Gwen Stefani's Harajuku Lovers label. Distinguished illustrator Tanya Ling produced prints for the Louis Vuitton 2009 cruise collection, and locally, Workshop often collaborates with artists each season on their popular printed tees - think Martin Poppelwell, John Pule and John Reynolds. Downton says there are a lot of contributing factors for the return. "One is that there are a lot of exciting and diverse talents out there. A second is certainly economic (generally an illustrator is cheaper and more flexible than a photographer), and a third is that it does hark back to another time. I was once drawing backstage at a Dior couture show, and a model said, 'you're drawing, wow, that's new!'. I remember thinking, it's got so old it's new!"

Miuccia Prada clearly went through an illustrative phase recently too, working with Swedish illustrator Liselotte Watkins for Miu Miu's Spring 2008 harlequin inspired collection and teaming up with well-known illustrator James Jean for Prada. Jean, who will speak at Semi Permanent in Auckland this weekend, created a mural for Prada's fairytale inspired spring/summer 2008 collection, which the fashion house took elements from and incorporated into fabrics, bags and accessories. The LA-based artist also wrote, designed and storyboarded Trembled Blossoms, an ethereal and beautiful animated short film based on the wallpapers. The collaboration between high fashion and fine art was a strong one, with Jean commenting that Prada's "darkly beautiful aesthetic ... meshed well with my own approach to making images".

"It was amazing to see my drawings draped on Sasha Pivovarova and photographed by the great Steven Meisel. The clothes and environment merged into a lush forest of images that emerged from the wallpapers. However, my feelings were mixed on the handbags, since my drawings were modified to erase out some of the weirdness in the original image. What made the wallpapers interesting to me was the juxtaposition of the macabre and the beautiful," says Jean, who will also showcase his recent works at Auckland's Plaything Gallery tomorrow night as well as signing copies of his new book, Kindling.

Our local illustration scene is slowly burgeoning and catching up with overseas trends, with illustrators like Rebecca ter Borg, Gina Kiel and Sarah Larnach (she does the artwork for Ladyhawke) getting attention here and overseas. Kelly Thompson, who did this week's Viva cover, is a young Wellington-based illustrator whose drawings have appeared in Curvy, Pulp, Karen and Mindfood as well as in ads for Little Brother, Madame Hawke and Mimco. Her personal works usually feature girls who are feminine, sexy and playful; some of which were on display in Melbourne recently as part of her Bookworms Never Go To Bed Alone exhibition. "People always comment that the eyes want them and won't stop looking! At my recent show, heaps of people kept coming up to me and saying that all of the girls were giving them the glad eye," says Thompson, who works as a part-time tutor at Wellington University on the side of her illustrative and photography work. "It's really hard [being a young illustrator in New Zealand]; when people ask me what I do they always reply, 'so, what does an illustrator do?'. Lots of people don't even know illustrators exist here! You really have to push yourself and constantly be on the back of what you've just done."

Louise Cuckow, the designer of the Sweetpea Home range as well as one of Karen Walker's design assistants, is another up-and-coming local illustrator. Her Karen Walker work involves fabric design and illustrations for screen prints, including the recent She's Cracked shattered ornate plate fabric. Her work has appeared on fashion garments and in magazines, mediums that have two distinct differences. "One is colour, it's more important to keep the number of colours limited on garments; at Karen Walker I'm usually working within the season's palette. The other is that a large part of the design has to do with how the illustrations work with the garment and the body, whereas in a magazine you are working to fill a page or complement a layout."

Stephen Richardson designs T-shirt graphics as part of his own Richard...son label, as well as collaborating with the likes of House of Aroha, Minnie Cooper and MAW. His approach to design is one of simplicity. "It's universally acknowledged that the goal for any great design is simplicity and paring back one's ideas - which isn't always as easy as it sounds. That concept isn't really a secret but it's definitely the key to making an idea work as an effective design."

Natasha Wright, currently studying fashion at Massey University in Wellington and who previously studied design and fashion management at Parsons in New York, works with pencil and gauche. Her feminine "figures in fashionable little outfits" feature on cards available at Tessuti, Macy Home and Brown, and she is also currently doing freelance illustration work for Yvonne Bennetti.

So will we be seeing more illustrative mainstream magazine covers? Photography isn't going to go away of course, but with all this burgeoning talent we predict we'll be seeing a lot more of it in the future.

•James Jean appears at Semi Permanent 2009 on August 14-15. Tickets from www.buytickets.co.nz or 0800BUYTICKETS.

* * *

Want to buy your own fashion illustrations? Here are some of our favourites.

Kelly Thompson - kellythompson.co.nz

Danny Roberts - igorandandre.blogspot.com

Jonas Lofgren - bildmekanik.se/-s

Fifi Lapin - fifilapin.bigcartel.com

Kelly Smith - kjsdesign.etsy.com

David Downton - daviddownton.com/html/forsale.