wedgwood

victor skellern, 1934

persian pony by victor skellern, 1939

 new england industries by claire leighton, 1950 

kalkulium suite by eduardo paolozzi, 1971

heartsease by edward bawden, 1952

an amazing eclectic collection of designs and illustrations on show at the wedgwood museum.  documenting the history of wedgwood from its founding in 1759 by josiah wedgwood, a true innovator who's pioneering techniques are still employed today.  all the designs are documented right up to current collections and my favourite are pictured above, particularly the eduardo paolozzi and victor skellern designs. 

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)

70's sanderson

following my post on the sanderson exhibition i did a little exploring through my magazine collection and found these great photos used by sanderson during the 70's to advertise their designs. i particularly like the poppy design in the middle with great bold colours and scale.