Rene Gruau

I can totally see the model Claudia Schiffer in a photo version of this for Chanel..



For my x-mas haul I got two fantastic fashion books. One that dealt specifically about fashion history and the other that was an index of working fashion illustrators. Although the latter was very inspiring there were too many fantastic illustrators in it for one post.

Instead I'll focus on the former which had a small biography of the legend Rene Gruau. Although I've seen some of his work here and there, seeing it an entirely different context was something else.
I wonder if Yoshitaka Amano has see the above picture...I got a sudden reminder of Amano's erotic series when I saw this.
Although he seems to be considered to be very traditional I think overall he is still a very modern artist. The piece above could have been painted in the last decade of the 19th century, it has a great Toulouse-Lautrec vibe to it..

Yet here is a beautifully abstracted woman in a playsuit. I love his boldness and how his considerable drawing abilities allowed him to get away without looking sloppy or accidential