“Even if I am doing something a bit more controlled, I will loosen up first with some blind drawings of the subject, so that when I move onto the real thing I can take the essence and freedom of the blind drawings into that work.”
J. Bird
“As social media expands and we are inundated with images, fashion illustration has never been as important.
Not as a competition to photography, but as an alternative way for a viewer to process: fashion illustration lets us interpret, dream and fantasize in wonderful ways! Long live fashion illustration!”
R.Haines
Copyright The Fible Vol.001
Copyright Cecilia Carlstadt
“Fashion illustration for me is a natural extension stemming from all the creativity that goes into the fashion industry. It becomes another layer of expression that continues to build on a story.”
Cecilia Carlstedt
Copryright The Fible Goild Foil
“With the world and industry changing around us at what can seem like an hourly pace, fashion illustration steps up to play a stronger role than ever. As creatives, of all kinds, look for solutions to the restrictions and new dynamics placed upon us, by the unfolding world that takes shape around us.
An ever evolving consciousness with a greater focus on responsibility and sustainability paves the way for fashion Illustration artists to create their magic and build visuals that contribute to our cultural dialogue. Allowing us all to escape
and dream, all with minimal ecological and ethical impact.
The future is bright!”
Nuno Da Costa
Vogue Portugal Resident Fashion Artist
Copyright The Fible Vol.001
Print details
Book, 235mm x 285mm 128 full colour illustrated pages
Casebound hard cover printed full colour on 170gsm silk matt laminate Scodex heavy gloss
spot varnish
GF SMITH - 150gsm Munken Kristall T/W Rough
Colorplan 175gsm Factory Yellow endpapers (start and finish
of book) plain finish
De-bossed foils Gold 6123 & Red 6717
Red head & tail bands Red cloth bookmark
Red thread-sewn binding
Contributing Artists/Academics & designers
Peter Dundas - Former CD Pucci / Currently Dundas World
Massimo Nicosia - Former CD Pringle / Currently Zegna CD
Salvo Nicosia - ALBERTA FERRETTI , PHILOSOPHY di Lorenzo Serafini presso AEFFE SPA
Audrey Schilt - Former VP Ralp Lauren Joseph Salah - VP Coty
Gill Button - Dries Van Noten Illustrator Laura Laine - Fashion artist
Nuno Da Costa - Vogue Portgual fashion artist Ugo Gattoni - Hermes
Richard Haines - Renowned fashion artist
Bil Donavon - Fashion artist
Cecilia Carlstedt - Fashion artist
Tina Berning - Renowned fashion artist
Antonio Colomboni - Art Director Toilet Paper Magazine Laird Borrelli-Persson - Editor Vogue fashion archives Roberta Pinna - Vogue Italia fashion
Pepe Munoz - Celine Dion creative fashion director
Supporting Schools & Partners
Conde Nast College of Fashion / Isitituto Marangoni / Accademia Costume & Moda / FIT /Parsons / The New School
P. Turner, Head of VIP Gucci
“I have always loved fashion illustration. It allowed my mind to travel before I even knew fashion would be my destiny. Today, I think there is a new relevancy to fashion illustration.
It feels like a creative counterbalance to the immediacy and limits that social media now imposes on our world.
We launched the Fida X Dundas fashion illustration competition to create a spotlight on the wonderful work created around our brand - it’s amazing to see the medium alive and thriving.”
Peter Dundas, CCO, Fashion designer
copyright Michael Choi
“Oil painting does not have to be perfect at first, you can make changes easily the next day. It is okay to not be precise initially with this traditional medium, which has actually helped me explore construction in a creative sense. Almost like draping with a paint brush, a detail that is not working out at the moment can be designed a different way a few hours later, without having to start all over again. To me the clothing also feels more substantial and there is a better sense of the end product with this traditional form of painting.”
M. Choi, Fashion artist + designer
“Fashion illustration is this mercurial yet tangible space where body, garment, look and context collide, stretching beyond the language of a photograph to
speak directly with the viewer.”
J. Layla
Copryright Jessica Bird
“Even if I am doing something a bit more controlled, I will loosen up first with some blind drawings of the subject, so that when I move onto the real thing I can take the essence and freedom of the blind drawings into that work.”
J. Bird
“As social media expands and we are inundated with images, fashion illustration has never been as important.
Not as a competition to photography, but as an alternative way for a viewer to process: fashion illustration lets us interpret, dream and fantasize in wonderful ways! Long live fashion illustration!”
R.Haines
Copyright Richard Haines
“The first time I saw a fashion illustration I was an eleven-year- old peering over my grandfather’s shoulder as he read The New York Times. These black and white ink drawings of the Paris couture collections, circa 1963, hit me with a jolt—how could such crisp lines give so much information about the clothes, the kind of woman who would wear them, and the wonders of Paris?
by Richard Haines, Fashion artist/illustrator
As a child I always loved to draw—it was my escape to a world
I could create. But from that day forward my passion shifted to fashion illustration. The power to convey so much and transport the reader with a few lines is as inspiring to me now as it was then, possibly more so, in this age of oversaturated media images.
I hope if you’re reading this book you share my love of fashion illustration, and you’ll find it as magical, evocative, and enthralling as I did at eleven, and do now, so many years later.”
“I owe my career to innovators such as John Galliano, and growing up with designers such as Alexander McQueen, Jean Paul Gaultier and Vivienne Westwood, who helped cultivate a natural predisposition to daydream and to escape from whatever was troubling me, through fantasy and imagination.”
P. Turner, Head of VIP Gucci
Laura Laine, Fashion illustrator + glass artist
“I enjoy the immediacy of using the iPad as it’s very portable and soon after the show the images are ready to post or be sent to my client -- no need to wait until I get home to scan in pages of drawings and retouching them before they’re ready to be used.”
S. Percy, Fashion illustrator, model & Socialite
Copyright The Fible Vol.001
“Shape, colour and movement excite me more than storytelling within images. I’m always envious of artists who can create narrative but what essentially excites me most is when putting down marks in whatever medium is the aforementioned. Fashion illustration encapsulates everything I need to stay excited about image making.”
by Chris Gambrell, Fashion artist/illustrator
Pierre Simon was a French fashion illustrator, painter and was passionate
about photography and cinema. Born in 1907, he started his career in 1927 with his first drawing in Harpers Bazaar magazine. Predominately illustrating for advertisements, he worked with Balenciaga, Christian Dior, Givenchy, Jacques Fath, Nina Ricci, Boucheron Jewelry, Orlane Cosmetics and many others. His work has been highlighted also by Vogue magazine.
Pierre Simon’s early works exhibit stylised elongated faces and hands. His women looked hard-nosed, similar to popular 1930s femme fatales of the time. Over the years, he began to draw faces with more realistic proportions, while stretching the body. The long neck and legs made his women delicate and elegant. His style is typically that of a fashion illustrator of the time.
Throughout his career he continuing to refine his own style. Perfecting the use of limited lines and colour, in just a few brush strokes he could create confident and engaging men and women that would effortlessly capture the viewers gaze. He often used black china ink with a touch of red (his favourite colour) to make his colours vibrate. Apart from fashion, he also tackled many other subjects such as sailors, caricatures, portraits, French and English scenes, etc.
His wife, Marie-Madeleine Lacourège known as “Marylène” was his muse. She holds a very special place in the work of Pierre Simon and is represented in many of his drawings. Pierre Simon never stopped drawing until he died in 1999, in his apartment in Paris, 3 weeks after his wife’s death.
by Pierre Simon Family Estate
The Fible vol.01 Red Foil
Why Fible Happened and it’s founder!
The Fible chronicles the first 18 months of Fida, which was created to celebrate fashion illustration and drawing around the globe.
The Fible is a tribute to Fida’s growing community and an opportunity to showcase some of the rising talents in the fashion illustration field, but to fully understand what Fida is and how it came about, you first have to know about its founder - Patrick Morgan RCA.
After leaving his family home to study Illustration at Kingston University, Patrick was catapulted into a completely new way of living: alone for the first time.
His life after Kingston was filled with exciting commissions with dream brands from Christian Dior to Tom Ford, and travelling around Europe to teach fashion illustration.
Ultimately, the teaching led him to the RCA, where he completed a Masters
in Visual Communication and afterwards he continued his practice in his studio. This solitude led Patrick to wonder how creative working could be more inclusive and how artists might collaborate to support one another, growing a community that future generations of creatives could be a part of, and so the seeds of Fida were sown.
Patrick is the beating heart of Fida and his warmth, energy and generosity drives everything that we are doing for the Fashion Illustration community, our ‘Fida Family’.
Copyright The Fible Vol.001
“Fashion illustration for me is a natural extension stemming from all the creativity that goes into the fashion industry. It becomes another layer of expression that continues to build
on a story.”
by Cecilia Carlstedt, Fashion artist/illustrator
Fashion Illustration was a significant part of fashion design when I worked with the designers who were building their brands. The role it played at Ralph Lauren for instance, was in multiple ways. Firstly, it was used as inspiration for the direction RL was going in. The story behind the collection, the places, the star of the story/the woman who was wearing the clothes. Where she would be traveling, attending events, or just her everyday life. In short, her lifestyle.
As we all know, Ralph is a lifestyle designer and the illustrations were a tool to tell the story and inspire the clothing. The illustrations were also used to translate to the patternmakers not only the designs, but to involve them in the direction and energy and make their talents a part of the team process. It was like creating a movie, and the visuals that were created gave the team a view of the bigger picture.
Some patternmakers would thank me for my illustrations, saying they excited and inspired their work in making it come to life. This was very gratifying to hear as I respected their talents very much.
The illustrations were used to show the celebrities how they might look in the designs and were often sent for approval before the garments were made. I used my portrait skills to make it look like them and I loved this part of my job.
The illustrations were used to show RL what his story would look like before diving too deeply into a direction he might feel was not correct for the season....So, sometimes in the beginning we would do multiple directions. Sometimes, it worked out , sometimes not, and sometimes if we were lucky he would tell the story using a multiple layering of how the movie could be told. It made for an interesting journey as an illustrator and my fashion illustration was enriched as an artform. I believe that using fashion illustration in this way helps give the brand a richer, fuller dimension and it makes working as a team a connection that they might otherwise not have.
by Audrey Schilt
VP Ralph Lauren Womenswear - Fida Judge 2020
Featured Artists in the Book
“To think of fashion is to think about a drawing, an idea, a vision, an inspiration, a universe. Looking at someone’s drawing can tell so much about who they are. One can say that illustrating is dreaming with your hands. I certainly feel that way.
Living in a digital era, for me it is a necessity to sit down with ink & paper to create and let the hand flow, not only to create but also to illustrate the beautiful work that designers around the world put out there everyday. For illustrators around the globe, now we can all feel like a big family. Looking forward to see the future adventures you take us on! Draw until your hand hurts.”
Pepe Muñoz, Fashion illustrator