Great Big Book of Fashion Illustration

by Martin Dawber

Fashion illustrators from around the world offer inspiring examples of techniques ranging from traditional watercolors, acrylics and pencil drawings to cutting-edge designs using the latest technology.

Genres: Nonfiction, Fashion

416 pages, Paperback

First published October 4, 2011

Reviews

[Jessica-Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Great Big Book of Fashion Illustration (long title) is a collection of modern art pieces of various mediums meant to highlight the best of fashion illustration from around the world.

I always find books like this one interesting. The idea that once upon a time before the popularization and commercialization of photography in fashion, people had to rely on the illustrator to show and advertise there creations to the world. This book brings together creative drawings created with tools that past illustrators did not have.

Although, with the age of the Internet it's a wonder books like this even exist. With photo galleries replacing paper collections I could probably get a very similar experience using DeviantART or other community art websites. (With the added unlimited content possibilities.) Despite this however, I find it truly interesting to look at a body of work collected by people who actually have an inkling of human experience rather then just a search engine.

I'll admit that I did skip the introduction. I gave it an honest effort but there was a point where I made the executive decision to just get to the pretty pictures already. I know, I have a very short attention span, but from my skimming I don't feel I missed out on much.

Now, without question the art in this book is magnificent. I was a little surprised by the amount of abstract art pieces in the book, which lean a bit more towards illustration then fashion. But, this is one of those books that you want to flip through very slowly because every page is filled to complete capacity with everything under the sun.

I could definitely see myself coming back to this book in the future and discovering even more new images in its pages.

[Joie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was is more of a coffee table book to be honest. I won't repeat the title because in my opinion it's way too long but in a nut shell its full of various sketches, abstract, and fashion illustrations. To be honest there are more illustrations in this book then anything else but I do like that they state the tools that each piece was created by. I personally used this one as inspiration to practice with my sketchbook it's in no way informative and you can probably get the same experience doing a Google search or going on any art on-line dealer. I personally wouldn't buy this if you thought it would be a good resource for your art cause it's not. It will give you some great ideas but that's not worth the money so look it up at your local library that's where I got my copy from. However if you're looking for some coffee table art this is a great choice and a great convo. starter.