Art - Goût - Beauté, Feuillets de l' élégance féminine, Mai 1929, No. 105, 9e Année, p. 15 1929

R. Drivon's fashion plate from a 1929 issue of "Art - Goût - Beauté" is made with a delicate hand. It's all about suggestion rather than depiction. I love the way he uses a restrained palette of blacks, creams, and muted oranges to convey the elegance of the era, leaving so much unsaid. The marks feel so immediate and intuitive, not labored or overly rendered. The whole image feels like a fleeting thought about style, a momentary vision captured on paper. I am particularly drawn to the dress on the right. It is lightly ornamented with red/orange leaf like forms which are suggestive of the kind of patterning favoured by Sonia Delaunay around this time. Thinking about Drivon's approach makes me consider the connection between fashion illustration and the broader artistic movements of the time, like Art Deco and early abstraction, where shape, line, and color were being explored for their own sake. Like all good art, this print makes you think about art itself.