Talk with Tom Ford

This past tuesday night I had the pleasure of attending a "Talk with Tom Ford" at the upper east side's renowned 92nd Street Y. As a self proclaimed fashion nerd, it was surreal to sit and watch the Tom Ford talk about everything from being bullied as a child for carrying a briefcase in lieu of a messy backpack, to his unprecedented reign at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, meeting Richard Buckley the love of his life 25 years ago, to his stint at retirement before diving back into womenswear to start his own collection inspired by the 30 most inspiring women in his life. (Including the likes of Julianne Moore, Beyonce, Lauren Hutton and Marisa Berenson.)

Tom talked a lot about the mentors in his life and the advice given to him that he's always valued, such as "only hire people you want to have dinner with" which he learned form Dawn Mello and "you have one decision to make in life, you can either be happy or not be happy" which was his grandma "Duckie's" motto.

Even talking about being an anal Virgo, Tom oozed charisma and charm.  He was entertaining, funny, and seductive in the way he answered questions and played off the audience. Fern Mallis even said how we were quite the lucky crowd because her inbox had been filled for days and her phone ringing off the hook with friends asking for tickets for the event which sold out instantly over four months ago. A second room had to be opened for people to watch a live-stream of the talk on screens. (The only other luminary the Y has ever offered that for was for Woody Allen!)



Ford shared so many wonderful insights into his life and career which I took many notes on but couldn't possibly write about it all. I manage to sneek these two photos, but for a more detailed recap of the event you can check out this Womens Wear Daily article and watch the video montage of highlights (above) that Fern Mallis shared a few days ago. A few of my highlights were:

-The influence of Halston on his designs (especially his early work), and Madame Vionnet on Halstons. Because "the art of creativity is concealing your source." -Coco Chanel

-He talked about the fact that people don't realize how hard people work in fashion, and with such passion. Its not appreciated or understood by those outside of the industry.

-Being at the helm of the Gucci Group and deciding what designers he admired and had potential but didn't conflict with his designs, eventually picking Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and Nicolas Ghesquiere.

-Gwyneth Paltrow at this years Oscars was one of his favorite fashion moments. He loved that she was brave enough to wear it and it was a proud moment.

It was a fabulous night and one that I will not soon forget. (Right up there with attending the Vogue fashion show and being commissioned to sketch for Barbie at NYFW.) How often you walk into a Y filled with air kissing fashion folk and sit in audience among such notable industry people as Glenda Bailey, Valerie Steele, Dawn Mello, Cathy Hardwick, Renaldo Barnette (whom I brought as my dapper date), Aaron Potts (another talented friend) and designer Brandon Sun, to name a just few, and get to listen to a fashion design genius talk for nearly 2 hours. I'm still on a fashion high, and it was three nights ago!

Met Ball 2012: Oscar de la Renta

The annual Met Ball aka "Fashion's Oscars" is an event I always look forward to for jaw-dropping fashion, and this years Met red carpet did not disappoint. It was packed with stars, the fashion elite and top models all donning stunning designer creations.

Its always challenging to find designer sketches of red carpet looks so I was thrilled when @OscarPRgirl pinned this Oscar de la Renta illustration made especially for Lauren Santo Domingo. Being the girly girl that I am, I loved this bow filled gown and absolutely adore the sketch of it. Even with facial features, hair, and all color being void, its still a completely readable a lovely fashion illustration. 

The Ball was in celebration of Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute's new exhibition honoring Miuccia Prada and Elsa Schiaparelli which opens to the public tomorrow. Tom Ford, whom I had the pleasure of actually seeing last night at the 92nd Street Y said the exhibition was "smart" and they way they displayed the work of both designers was like nothing he'd seen before. Tom even said he emailed Miuccia first thing in the morning to send his praises. I'm looking forward to checking out the exhibit myself and fingers crossed next year I'll be walking that carpet opening night! (Don't laugh, its always been a dream!) 

Tuesday Tip: Illustrating Leopard

Have you always wanted to learn how to accurately illustrate leopard print? Well its your lucky day, and you may be surprised to learn that leopard just so happens to be one of the easiest and most foolproof prints to draw and draw well. Being an animal skin, leopard print is organic, some parts are clustered and messy and some are open and spacey. You really can't make a mistake with this one I promise.

1. The first step is to choose your color way, and the three markers you'd like to use for the print. With the lightest one you lay the ground color for the print. I chose a dark tan color, in order to render a more realistic leopard print.

2. Let your base color dry then add a second "coat" in streaky and somewhat rough stripes, one being down the center and then as few or as many as you'd like to each side. This will add depth to the print.

3. Choose a marker that is darker than your ground color and randomly draw comma or kidney shaped "spots" with it, as I've illustrated for you in step three with brown.

4. With your darkest marker (I used black) draw three dashes or kidney shapes of varying lengths surrounding each of the kidney shapes you drew in the step three. Its as though you're messily outlining each spot with three dashes.

5. Add highlights, shadows and any garment design details with your black and white (or white charcoal) pencils. And ta-da! There you will have a classic leopard print.

Its been quite a while since my last Tuesday Tip post, but I figured what better way to get back into the tutorial mode than by showing you how to render this fun and classic print. Since I drew the tutorial in standard leopard colors I thought I should also show how easy it is to use the same steps but with colors that are a little more on-trend. Gray, black and white shown above, is a little more pop and edgy and the purples below are a colorful alternative.

If you're hungry for more you can check out my previous Tuesday Tip here, and come back next week because I'm working on another one for you. (I promise not to wait almost 2 years for another one this time!)

***I'm also taking suggestions so let me know in the comments section if there's a tip you'd like to see to help improve your fashion illustration skills.

Related posts you may like:

• Custom Fashion Illustrations for Love Gold
• My New Illustrated Books Now Available
• Inspired by Grey Gardens

Instagram Addict

As my friends can attest to I'm a bit of a picture taking fanatic, therefore my favorite iPhone app has quickly become Instagram. In the past few months I've become a little obsessed and have been sharing everything from sneak peaks at projects I'm working on and quick sketchbook doodles, to my diy's, glimpses into my apartment and the occasional shot while out and about in the city. Shown here are a bunch of my recent favorites, but you can check out more of my pictures by following me, Brooklit. (I often share my photo's from Instragram through twitter too, which I also go by Brooklit.)

Instagram has many wonderful aspects to it but a favorite of mine is the ease of editing your images with color effects, brightness and adding a blur which you can easily adjust the size and focus of. Its so much quicker and easier than importing to photoshop. Its also fun to see what your friends are up to and "like" and/or comment on images that they post. (Here's a peak of my latest Instagram pic of a new Tuesday Tip I'm working on.)

You can now turn your Instagram photo's into something more; prints, books, magnets, even iphone cases. My friend Holly Becker of Decor8 recently did a wonderful round up of printing options for your Instagram shots, which you can check out here. I'll certainly be placing orders from a site or two from her list soon.

(All images taken by me on Instragram, @Brooklit)

Copic Marker Guest & New Print

As you probably know from reading Fabulous Doodles I love my Copic Markers, so needless to say I was thrilled when they contacted me and asked me to write a guest post of a bridal illustration tutorial for their blog. Instead of featuring one of my custom bridal illustration client projects I decided to create a new, and more stylized, bridal print. If you'd like to read about my process from start to finish you can check out the guest post I wrote on the Copic Marker site.

I like this new sketch so much that I decided to add her to Brooklit Bride, my Etsy bride shop. I rarely alter my sketches once they're completed but I did tweak this print in photoshop so its slightly different than the one Copic featured. I elongating the black sash to just beyond the gown's train. Proportionally it just seems to work better. Hope you like the newest Brooklit Bride print, sultry, sophisticated and sexy Victoria.

New Print: Meet Mae

Meet Mae, the latest print added to my Brooklit Etsy shop. This look was inspired by a uniquely draped Zac Posen dress I spotted on Shopbop. The detail I found most enticing about the dress is gathered rounded godets along a dropped waistline that form a full skirt. Rounding out the godet tops is something I've never seen before and was inspired to incorporate it into one of "my girls."

I named her Mae because it just seemed to fit her soft and coy demeanor. Doesn't she look like she's just standing in a corner daydreaming about her future first love? To purchase a print or to see Mae in more detail, click here for the full listing in my shop.