The Red Dot

After retail-therapy, fashion illustration-therapy.

It's a while that I am thinking of showing the websites and the blogs that I like the most.
Somehow, I feel like a blogroll is not enough: OK, I list all my favorite links, but I miss a lot the part in which I can explain WHY I like one certain website. I'm a review freak, if you want to put it like that.

So the other day I thought about dividing my favorites of the moment in categories and I started to ask them for permission of using their pictures to show you their works, and voilà my first list is about my favorite three websites for fashion illustration (+ 1 extra).

I think that illustration and drawing in fashion not only are extremely beautiful, but they can even inspire my shopping like no other. I think it's because they suggest you a mood, a trend, colors and shapes more than an item itself. It's like a way of stimulating your creativity and fantasy, suggesting you the fashion of the moment in a more subtle way than magazines et similia. And plus, after a while you observe this kind of works, you feel surrounded by beauty and you can't stop it even in your real life. I think they're kind of a therapy.

One of my favorite above all is Garance Doré, but since I bet that everybody here already know her and since she also owns my favorite blog (above all) at the moment I am not going to talk about her too much here. Just check out her illustration and photography, c'est superbe.

So, after an hour of useless talking (as always, I would say) here is my list of three:

MAYA BEUS

http://mayabeus.blogspot.com/

I discovered her just two or three days ago, but her drawings hit me like a truck at 150 km/h on the highway would so I really felt the pushy need to write about her and show you how beautiful her work is.

I find her shaping of the feminine silhouette and face and her use of color the perfect synthesis between simplicity and detail. I could stare her drawings for hours, they embody my taste and my sense of beauty and color perfectly.

She's also very funny and nice to read too, I really suggest you all to check out her blog.

And, last but not least, she's a lovely person. I recently wrote a comment on her blog and she replied here with this:

"Your drawings are very lovely. Thank you for visiting and I hope you are gonna keep drawing as there is nothing sexier than an artist scientist! ;-)

Cu around Al!

M"

I mean... do you know anything that can boost your self-confidence more than a sentence like this? I don't. I told her, you're better than my red lipstick...

(Ah! I almost forgot, she's a member of Independent Fashion Bloggers too)

Some more drawings of Maya (I really had an hard time choosing just three of them):

IGOR + ANDRE'

http://igorandandre.blogspot.com/

This guy is amazing, he's so talented that he almost gives me pain. He has a wonderful use of colors but the thing I like the most is how he shapes the faces of women:

I think he has a very good rendering of depth, shadows and shape of the woman face, which I find very difficult when I draw. I always use his drawings as models to exercise ahaha!

I love the dreamy, delicate feeling of beauty his drawings give... That's what I meant when I wrote that a drawing can inspire you the whole meaning of fashion, after looking at some of his works I bought some that now I consider as staple pieces for me and I use every day. I don't know the mechanism through which this works, but I really guess it is just a "I see beauty I want more beauty" thing.

He also has an etsy shop where you can buy his prints:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/DannyRoberts

I think I'll do that soon (I should stop looking at the blog of this guy or my wallet will start to scream for revenge)

PAPERFASHION

http://paperfashion.wordpress.com/

This is exactly how I would like to be able to draw. But believe, I am already grateful that someone that can draw something like this exists, because I can look at it and feel good.

I don't have much to say about the work of Kathryn Elyse, also because I think it's really better to let her drawings speak for me. Just that if a fashion magazine only illustrated like this would exist I would buy it every month. Multiple copies if necessary.

She also have an Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/kathrynelyse (she made a calendar that is to die for)

So, do you like these artists, did you already know them?

And don't you feel too that by looking at them something inside you is melting and you just feel that you would stare at the landscape for hours and operate to bring even more beauty in your life?

Do they make the same effect as for me on shopping and on your style, even better than looking outfits and magazines pictures?

Oh, how many questions, sorry! I'm just curious, I like this topic eheh...

Now I go to pack (again... back to Belgium!). Have a nice day!

EDIT: Oh my I almost forgot!!!

On I LOVE ILLUSTRATION you will find articles on all the best fashion illustrators around the world.

I discovered so many of them thank to this website that is very nice and always up-to-date.

I really suggest it to everyone, and especially if you like to draw you can find real treasures for inspiration there.

(and this was the "little extra"! And I forgot it! My, my Al what a brain!!)

I am always super excited when I see science going out of its boundaries and reaching totally different shores, like fashion in this case.

It happens mainly with maths (for example to design patterns, like the ones I'll show in this post, made using fractals) or chemistry (not only direct applications like new fabric polymers and dyes, but also even more creative things like molecular kitchen. And have you ever noticed how beautiful chemistry and pharmacy glassware can be as home decoration and food storage containers?).

Here's a very beautiful example that I spotted on Oyster magazine:

Images from oystermag.com

The team of designers who created these beauties is called Tru$t Fun, you can find more informations about them and also a little interview about their idea on the oyster magazine article.

This is their website: Tru$t Fun

I love them!