Book Alert: New Fashion Illustration (CYPI Press)

Mention fashion illustration to real connoisseurs and they will launch into a lecture about the poetry, elegance and style of René Gruau. The Italian-born artist gets more than one mention in the volume New Fashion Illustration (published on Gingko Press' imprint CYPI).

As the title suggests, the book is a collection of artworks by a selection of artists from all over the world, including Sara Vera Lecaro, Masaki Mizuno, Anne Cresci, Cecilia Carlstedt, Nicole Jarecz, David Despau, Ëlodie, Katrinn Pelletier, Ko.Machiyama, Stina Persson, Yana Moskaluk and Pippa McManus. Each illustrator presents their work via short interviews: questions revolve around their inspirations, techniques, passions and the future of this art and how they think it will evolve.

Artworks range from Haute Couture to ready-to-wear, mainly from relatively recent collections, but there are also beauty illustrations, posters for a variety of cultural events, personal interpretations of fashion, editorial art, adverts and drawings commissioned by famous brands. Some of the artists included have indeed worked for internationally renowned fashion houses and brands; others are fairly new illustrators and a few of them are also part of the Colagene Creative Clinic.

There are illustrators who favour traditional materials such as ink, pens and watercolours or mixed media; others love to experiment with new digital media and graphic tablets. Quite a few mention childhood and children's fairy tales as inspiration, but many other have specific fashion or art icons firmly in mind.

The more personal illustrations in which the artists included flowers, animals, architectural elements and landscapes and did not borrow from a specific and recognisable fashion collection are actually among the best ones.

Some of the illustrators featured in the volume also work as textile designers, another aspect that may be of interest to students interested in learning more about the opportunities this career may offer.

The book should have maybe been entitled Journeys Through Fashion Illustration since the artists included come from all over the world.

Readers will therefore move from Ecuador, Chile and Costa Rica to Canada, Singapore, France, Belgium and Siberia while leafing through the pages of this volume, the international cast proving that fashion illustration is not just trending at the moment, but it is a desirable and highly creative career.