['Journal des Dames et des Modes: the Fashion Illustrators', 'Journal des Dames et des Modes: Fashion News'] by H. Honore

['Journal des Dames et des Modes: the Fashion Illustrators', 'Journal des Dames et des Modes: Fashion News'] 1913

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hhonore

print, watercolor

portrait

art-nouveau

print

figuration

watercolor

watercolour illustration

Dimensions: height 177 mm, width 109 mm

In this fashion plate from 'Journal des Dames et des Modes,' H. Honore used delicate watercolors and line work to capture the elegance of the era. It’s all about process here, watching how each carefully placed line and color gently describes form, almost as if coaxing it into existence. There’s something about the way the pink of the jacket meets the fur trim that just sings. The colors aren’t shouting; they’re whispering, creating a harmony that’s both refined and a little cheeky. Look at the way Honore details the cloudscape and the women's hosiery. The illustration invites a kind of daydreaming, a journey into a world of high fashion. And that brings to mind Manet, whose paintings also played with the subtleties of modern life, inviting us to find beauty in the everyday. Art, like fashion, is a conversation across time, each piece echoing and reinterpreting the past in its own unique way.

Comments

rijksmuseum almost 2 years ago

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['The Journal des Dames was inspired by the eponymous fashion magazine from the previous century and, like the earlier publication, referred to its illustrations as Costumes Parisiens. These Costumes Parisiens (184 illustrations in total) were drawn in a new, flat, decorative manner by George Barbier, Jan van Brock, Victor Lhuer and other Parisian artists, each with a signature style. Every issue came with two or three separate plates. These showed a wide variety of fashionable apparel, from elegant evening attire to outdoor outfits. A brief caption provides the name of the garment and the material from which it was made, but never the name of a fashion house.', 'The Journal de Dames et des Modes was marketed towards the affluent, sophisticated elite. The text consisted of literary contributions and articles on various topics written by leading Parisian literati. The fashion commentaries discussed the full spectrum of new trends, such as ‘strolling bareheaded by motorcar,’ matching the colour of one’s dress to that of one’s automobile, the impracticality of small umbrellas, the wearing of sky-blue and grass-green wigs, and the vogue among women for large flat hats or for the small toques adorned with feathers that projected from their foreheads like antennae.']