Fashion illustrator Danielle Meder gave a “live sketching lecture” in Toronto last week. The sketches and commentary are now posted online, so we can see how she illustrates a concept in very few lines. As long as you know who they are, it’s not hard to see Justin Bieber and Twiggy in the pictures above. The subject was how the shapes of fashion change over time. Or doesn’t. Here’s a snippet:
The feminization of fashion led to the upholstering of women. Women’s lives became so dramatically different from men’s that their silhouette became exactly opposite. Their clothing was literally constructed as heavily as furniture, and in the 1860s skirts became so wide women couldn’t wear coats – complete domestication.
The bottom-heavy, big-skirted silhouette still exists today in the context of prom dresses and bridal gowns. Women wear this as a very formal, ultra-feminine sexual display. Covering your legs this way is coyly enticing, a “look at me, don’t look at me” game – it totally covers the lower half of your body and yet also makes the lower half of your body the biggest thing in the room.
There are plenty more illustrations in this interesting presentation at final fashion. -via Digg