Back in Fashion
René Gruau is listed as an inspiration by
just about every fashion illustrator on the
planet, and to this day his style influences
catwalk collections. Garrick Webster looks
at the Gruau revival . . .
The incredible creativity of René Gruau is back, but this time it’s not
being revived in a lavish coffee table book, nor hung on a gallery wall.
The pre-eminent fashion illustrator’s powerful-yet-sublime brushstokes
recently came to life on the catwalk in 40s and 50s-inspired collections
shown during London Fashion Week, and in Paris.
Sjaakie, who shares a studio with Eric Van Den Boom in Utrecht
London-based milliner Stephen Jones was the creative force behind a
series of hats that paid homage to Gruau’s consummate flair with paint
and ink. “We’d all been to the René Gruau exhibition at Somerset House
and that’s really what sparked the whole thing,” explains Jones. “He
illustrated Dior clothes in the 40s and 50s so beautifully.”
Gruau died in 2004 aged 95 after a lifelong career depicting haute
couture and influencing some of its top designers. His creativity and
style lives on. It was the Gruau brushstroke that Stephen Jones wanted
to capture in the hats, and the milliner deftly used horsehair, and light
materials like tulle and organza, to create the effect of the great artist’s
brush lifting away from the paper, or running out of paint mid-swoosh.
“What we loved most of all was the effervescence in the Gruau
brushstroke - that sort of sense of freedom but power at the same time,
so that’s really what we tried to capture in the hats,” Jones continues.
Just like Stephen Jones and his fellow designers in haute couture,
fashion illustrators have also been re-evaluating Gruau thanks to the
recent showings of his work at Somerset House and at the Design
Museum in London. “Gruau influences most fashion illustrators because
he struck the perfect balance between caricature and realism,” points
out illustrator Jacqueline Bissett. “I love the graphic nature of his bold
use of colour, his lines are so spontaneous.”
129