Some Sketches

I thought you all would want to see the backlog of images I have. I happen to think it's depressing that these drawings span a year and they are the ACCUMULATED OUTCOME of any formal drawing I have done. So many great designs are hidden in my notes. My process is to randomly draw until I hit on a motif, draw it obsessively until I get it right, and, if I don't put it into a formal illustration, then forget about it. If I don't feel the dress--its colors, its fabrics--then I don't want to hear about it again.

First up: A minimalist Byzantine gown. I drew a doodle of it on one of the first days of Italian class junior year, then eventually put it down on fancy 11"x14" marker paper.

The purple stripe in the middle is meant to imitate the clavi, seen above in the mosaic from San Apollinare Nuovo. Clavi generally denoted rank but eventually became decorative elements.

 Then there's this sketch, also from sophomore year. This is Esmerelda [sic] one of the main characters in the epic I'm constantly writing in her head. I never colored the sketch in because I loved the face too much.

Next up: a drawing I did of the lake at the beginning of this year. I thought it would be really awesome to indicate texture by using different types of crosshatching...but I got bored.

Then there's a sketch I did this summer. I was really inspired by some gorgeous Art Nouveau glass vases from the Philadelphia Museum of Art:

One day at work this summer, the idea for a blouse suddenly flew into my head: a blue-gray crinkle chiffon kimono top with attached crimson satin belt and a violet shell. And, hey, why not make it into a ball gown? This was also the day when I had stroke-like symptoms due to heat and stress. Oh, wait, I didn't tell you about that? Fun times.

I know that the final drawing is not in the right proportions (the left arm, for one, is too long), but I'm really happy with how the face came out. I was trying to imitate some contemporary Georges Barbier images. Think I was successful?

The next sketch was a perfect storm of inspiration. There was some Jezebel headline called "Get This Girl A Dress!" about how apparently no one would lend out clothes to Christina Hendricks except for tacky Zac Posen because no one makes samples in her size. (Which is dumb.) Now, I happen to have a picture of this Christian Lacroix dress on my wall (I promise it looks nicer in the Vogue photograph):

All photos Style.com

Anyway, for some reason, I was thinking about the Jezebel article when stepping out of the shower when this image hit me of a sassy Christina on the red carpet in a gray and black dress that fully covered her boobs, with lace like the Lacroix dress, and little blue, yellow, and green rhinestones on the lace (because...why not?).

One day, I'll make a formal sketch of it. Maybe...

Finally, a dress that had been stewing in my head for awhile. The pattern came to me in a flash: clusters of some sort of flowering branch that, from far away, look like an abstract or camo pattern.

The idea for the dress was to have the back be made out of three panels, like a Watteau back, but not pleated. The dress would be made out of a slate blue duchess silk satin (it's a heavy satin, not liquid like bridal satin), embroidered with gold matte leather sequins. The character that I designed this dress for is named Dove. She is a sex bomb and is very, very French. So why not give the dress an olive branch motif?

I picked up the design again on the first day of classes. Somewhere along the line, I decided to add two back panels, to give the dress a sporty look. Now it's made of seven pieces: two front panels joined at the center front, one central back panel, two bottom side panels and and two top side panels:

I'm not really happy with how the drawing as a whole came out, but you get the idea. I'm going to redraw it one day and I will try to figure out how to make the pattern I want...

Premet

Too much has happened since I last wrote. I had a fun internship this summer (that might turn into a job?), I'm working on a thesis about how the Medici circle, especially Botticelli and his Birth of Venus, used the image of a woman named Simonetta Vespucci (distant cousin of Amerigo), I just finished a run on Rocky Horror as a Trixie and a Transie, and now I'm really fucking tired.

Anyway. I was researching the early 20th century design house Drecoll (why? You'll find out soon enough.), when I came across this website with sketches from a house called Premet, a Parisian house that was open from 1911-1931. All of the images on antique print dealer Elisabeth Legge's site are from 1921-1930, but most of the sketches look like they're from 1930, anticipating the tight, clean geometry of the rest of the decade.

What really strikes me the most is the unnamed designer's brilliant use of color. The above slate blue and red is an enviable color combination, and there are better ones that follow:

The geometry and the colors of this one are strongly reminiscent of the Fall 2010 Balenciaga collection. (Except the Premet is obviously superior and not ugly.)

What surprises me most is the fussiness of some of the clothes from the 20s. The early part of the decade was known as the "costume period," where the famous knee-length, dropped waist was paired with the 1910s's taste for "Oriental" embellishment. Minimalism really only came about in the late 20s, with the advent of Chanel's little black dress. But here, we see the house's taste for false hanging sleeves that recall the late Gothic period:

And a Getty image from 1926:

But my favorites are the evening gowns: light, clever, sophisticated and elegant.