gruau master of ink

i was fortunate to visit dior illustrated, rené gruau and the line of beauty at somerset house in january. this exceptional illustrator worked with dior from the 40's to the late 1980's and mostly drew for the dior perfumes, despite this being a time when fashion houses were turning to photography for their advertising. dior met gruau when they both worked on the fashion desk at le figaro in 1936, from then on the two men had a lasting friendship and working partnership.

responding to the zeitgeist but with a strong individual style he produced some of the most iconic images in fashion (and even appeared in the dior cook book)

truly gruau was the master of the minimal, conveying so much with only the few strokes of a brush:

miss dior, 1971

miss dior, 1961

diorissmo, 1959. from a series known as the flower women

miss dior, 1949 the hand of mitzah bricard (muse to dior)

it had to be horrockses

i recently had a lovely afternoon looking at old photos with my granny. granny brown had so many beautiful printed dresses, of those she hadn't made herself a few special pieces were horrockses. horrockses fashions was established in 1946 as a ready-to-wear women's wear brand and encompassed day, evening and beach wear. horrockses were particularly clever with marketing, regularly advertising in vogue (at the time filled with couture) and being worn by well known models and many in the royal family. dresses were covered in distinctive prints, designed by contemporary artist such as eduardo paolozzi and graham sutherland.

i visited the horrockses exhibition at the fashion and textiles museum (which if you miss look out for the book written by the exhibitions curator christine boydell) filled with great examples from the archives. i particularly liked the bikini and play suits and of course the beautiful prints, my favorites including a green and yellow banana print and crazy 50's atomic styles.

an illustrated fashion advertisement, vogue june 1949

hand painting in the design studio

princess margaret in her horrockses dress 1956. fabric designed by louise le brocquy

navajo weaving

a few weeks ago i was lent an amazing book about monument valley, containing these great photos of navajo weaving.

blankets and rugs were woven in wool, coloured using natural dyes (later substituted for modern dyes to allow greater range of colour). navajo weaving is highly distinctive and certain patterns can be used to trace the time and place an item was woven.

blankets have a particular importance to the navajo population. used both every day and ceremonially, they also hold value and were used for trading. in 1909 pendleton woolen mills manufactured their own trading blankets which were sold to the navajo people. pendleton designer joe rawnsley researched colours and patterns popular to tribes. these were then translated using modern weaving techniques.

the pendleton blankets were highly prized, the last photo show a navajo woman wearing a pendleton blanket in the 1940's.

ascher

as i have been busy production printing for a/w 2010 i wanted to post some great pictures i found of screen printing at the ascher studio london during the 1940's. ascher textiles was founded by zika and linda ascher in london after they left prague in 1939. ascher are most well known for their artist commissioned silk scarf designs from the likes of matisse and henry moore and their floral designes used by doir and schiaparelli.

moore

i have just visited the henry moore exhibition at tate britain. this is mostley about his sculpture however the examples of his many drawings and primarily sketches are my favorite finds. these have great fluidity and an off beat use of colour and are as exciting as his 3D work. if you are a moore fan the perfect place to really see his work is at his former home where you can look around his studio and gardens. here they have beautiful examples of the textiles that moore designed in the 1940's for ascher ltd (see last two photos). very inspiring!