Though I’ve never had much of an eye for fashion, I do have an appreciation for fashion illustration, which sometimes shares some characteristics with comic book illustration, in that it has often been done in line or line filled with tone or color.
Unfortunately, advances in newspaper printing technology, which permitted improved reproduction of photography, largely displaced the most common uses for fashion drawing in newspaper advertising over the last 20 years or so. It’s always good to see that the art is still alive in certain quarters, often with a more modern take on the venerable forms of rendering.
Lidia Luna has an approach that uses a fine or disappearing line, in fine point pen or pencil, with subtle rendering in watercolor.
Her renderings of models wearing haute couture take a minimalist approach to the presentation of faces, with forms suggested by soft gradations at key edges, and focus the detail on the clothing, as is expected in fashion illustration.
She has a website with a selection of renderings (arranged by project, note the “Next Project” links at the top of the pages), and a blog with more images, as well as sketches and other subjects.
There is a brief interview with Luna on Couture Troopers, but it doesn’t delve into technique.
[Via Illustration Mondo]










Very nice!
I also like that she gives the models some identity too. Often in fashion illustration the head of the model is just a collection of generic features.
Hers remind me of a contemporary version of Belle Époque in the way she renders the model in a very sensitive fashion (pun intended) along with the fashion as a whole. The model is not a mere figure to hang the clothes on but instead part of a total package.
Look at the dry points, aquatints and etchings by Paul Cesar
Helleu, Edgar Chahine, Louis Legrand from about 1875 to 1910.
*”The term ‘Belle Époque’ encapsulates a style more than an era…”
*from the book”Belle Époque Posters and Graphics” by Victor Arwas
Love this style!
By the way, have you seen the latest Getty blog post? http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/open-content-an-idea-whose-time-has-come/
Looks like it is going to be a great place for which to issue one of your time-sink warnings! ;)