Illustrations... those beautiful and inspiring visualizations that come as drawings, paintings, photographs, or other kinds of art with the idea to deliver sensual information in the most fantastic way possible by providing a visual representation graphically. This kind of information is what makes the fashion world not only magical but possible. Without it, we could not speak about anything in this industry, from designs to magazine covers and editorials; graphic design could not come any more glamourous and dreamy than the fashion illustration.
For over 500 years, the fashion illustration has been with us, amusing our eyes and wowing our imaginations. Ever since there have been ideas that need to come alive there has been a need for fashion illustration. And these inventions are not only functional, but they present themselves as a kind of art, a dazzling and small part of somebody's essence that comes from the deepest desires and aspirations of the authors and collaborators.
Today’s technology has allowed the industry’s creative teams to find a great bunch of options to express themselves, in such new, easy, and unexpected ways that you do not need to be a master with the pencils or the oils to perfectly communicate your idea. From photos to computer-based collages and graphic design software such as Adobe Illustrator, anyone can easily and successfully graphically place any thought on a piece of paper or a computer screen. Thanks to that fantastic technology, there has been a massive decline in fashion illustration, which began in the late 1930s when Vogue began replacing its celebrated and iconic illustrated covers with photos.
According to Laird Borrelli, author of Fashion Illustration Now: “Fashion Illustration has gone from being one of the sole means of fashion communication to having a very minor role. The first photographic cover of Vogue was a watershed in the history of fashion illustration and a watershed mark of its decline. Photographs, no matter how altered or retouched, will always have some association with reality and by association truth. I like to think of them [fashion Illustrations] as prose poems and having more fictional narratives. They are more obviously filtered through an individual vision than photos. Illustration lives on, but in the position of a poor relative to the fashion.”
The real fashion illustration has become a kind of haute-couture of representative ideas. Some time ago, great designs came with fantastic images; a lot of hard work had to be done in order to prepare those magnificent pieces that could be classified as art. But these days, design students do not even bother to learn how to draw because of the availability of simple software that in some cases comes with templates which can be easily transformed. Mediocre designers feel like they do not need to find a way to cleverly express their ideas in the the most appropriate way possible. Neither design companies nor magazines feel the need to hire magnificent illustrators; they only need somebody who can run the appropriate software. Which is the natural course of the industry – it has to save money and make everything faster, and in the end it all become disposable work.
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