Journal des Demoiselles, Suplement au No. 15, 1 Août 1912, No. 5113 : Toilettes de Mmes Forcillon (...) 1912

This fashion plate titled, Journal des Demoiselles, Suplement au No. 15, was printed in France on August 1, 1912. The colours are muted – soft blues, creams, greens, and browns. The artist’s hand isn’t totally absent, you can see a looseness in the application. Notice the vertical striations in the blue dress on the left, which mimic the long elegant lines of the skirt. The dressmaker had a vision! You can see how the plate was produced using a mechanical printing process, but the hatching of the lines and the hand-drawn quality of the figures make it feel very human. The green of the umbrella, for example, feels like a watercolour sketch, and this impression is heightened by the presence of lightly sketched figures in the background. The composition reminds me a little of Matisse, or Dufy, two artists who also worked in commercial art as well as the so-called ‘fine arts’. Perhaps the world of fashion illustration was more influential than we give it credit for…