Dress c. 1938

This drawing of a dress was made with ink on paper by Julie C. Brush. Look at how Brush used line to create form, how economical each mark is. The hatching in the sleeve feels almost like a suggestion of a shadow, rather than a descriptive form. The texture is smooth and the lines are crisp. You can really tell that Brush was confident in her process! The silhouette of the dress has a romantic feel and reminds me of the drawings you would see in a fairytale. The bottom of the dress has a little frill with small repeating shapes, an echo of the larger frill around the neck, which creates a lovely dialogue within the image. Like the work of fashion illustrators, like Erté, the drawing has an element of fantasy and aspiration, with the same embrace of art as a playground for dreams.