Holiday Pop-Up at Anthropologie

I am so excited so be partnering Anthropologie this year to be hosting my first holiday pop-up shop of the season. I'll be selling my fashion illustration prints, hand painted ornaments, holiday cards, and as a special treat I'll also be hand painting Anthropologie candles with customers names! It's always wonderful to work with a global brand but this one in particular is special, as I've been such a long time loyal customer. (Even my nightstand and a bunch of items here on my desk are Anthro!) I have to say I'm so excited to be working them. It's also only our first event of the season. The next one I can't share just yet, but its even more exciting! Invite above and details here: 

Anthropologie Westport

59 Post Rd E

Westport, CT

 12-3pm November 20th, 2021

Hope to see you there today! --It's also actually my very first live event of any kind in CT, so that exciting too. 

Ralph Lauren Team USA Uniform Sketches | Tokyo 2021

The time has finally come, the Ralph Lauren Olympic fashion illustration's for the Team USA Uniforms have been been released and tonight we get to see them in action. “Team USA’s 2020 [now 2021 since the pandemic postponement] Opening Ceremony Parade Uniform is a classic all-American look that incorporates sustainable materials within each piece,” a press release from Ralph Lauren read. What it left out was that it incorporated elements, or better yet accessories and illustrative details we’ve yet to see from Ralph Lauren for any Olympic Games ever before such as athletes sporting face masks, and for the first time a press release illustration incorporating the disabled community with a Paralympian and a wheelchair as well as a multitude of ethnicities for the croquis. The inclusive nature of the team USA uniform illustrations released by Ralph Lauren of both opening and closing ceremony looks for 2021 are truly like none we’ve ever seen before from the brand!

In addition to the added elements mentions above, from what I can tell (and now I can’t be 100% certain but I’d be willing to bet money on it) these illustrations also appear to be digital drawings which is quite the departure for a brand with such a rich history of hand drawn illustrations behind their designs. (At the end of this post I’ll share links with examples of older works.) Specifically the opening ceremony illustration, with the multiple figures, and the way the flag and fabrics are rendered, appears to me to be evenly filled lines are that are rendered with digital brush strokes. Of course it’s still in the same beautiful Ralph Lauren illustrative style and well drawn croqui’s that are quality examples of the brand. But it’s a modern drawing technique, a high tech fashion illustration version that parallels the high performance gear and sustainable clothing elements the illustrations are representing.

Bravo Ralph Lauren! For being all-inclusive with the disabled community, representing multiple ethnicities, not ignoring the pandemic with masks and stepping out of your comfort zone by doing digital illustrations for these 2021 Olympic Team USA looks! Can't wait to see the illustrations come to life on the athletes in tonight's Opening Ceremony.

 

Similar past posts that may interest you: 

• Olympic Team USA Designs by Ralph Lauren | Rio 
• Olympic Team USA Sketches 2014
  
• 2012 Olympic Uniform Designs 
• Fall In Love With...
  

Halston Fashion Illustrations from Halston Style Exhibit

This weekend I, like most fashion lovers, devoured the new 5-part mini series Halston that premiered on Netflix. To my pleasant surprise the series was peppered with Halston fashion illustrations and it got me thinking about Halston Style, an exhibit I went to 4 years ago, in April of 2017 at the Nassau County Museum of Art. (Side note: a museum I actually volunteered at as a docent, many moons ago in my high school years!) I've been to countless fashion designer retrospectives throughout the years but this one is engrained in my head, as it had hands down the most fashion illustrations of any I'd ever even been to and illustrated by the likes of Halston, Steven Sprouse, Joe Eula (Halston Creative Dir. of 10+ years), and Andy Warhol. The collection of illustrations, garments, iconic designs like Jackie Kennedy's inaugural Halston designed pillbox hat (shown below), personal notes and memorabilia from a life long fashion career was curated from Halston's personal archive which he bestowed upon his neice Lesley Frowick with the directive to write a book "because she would have everything she needed to tell his story. She wrote the book, after 25 years, but always felt a companion exhibit was necessary to share Halston's style and sensibilities given the rich volumes he left behind." 

Halston was "ahead of his time in more ways than one, he considered all body types, his designs flattering all ages and sizes. He recruited plus sized vaudevillian Pat Ast to model and be a member of his entourage. Although he was trained in fashion illustration at the Chicago Art Institute, within a few short years he hired Steven Sprouse as official fashion illustrator. Sprouse worked by his side for a few years before making his own mark on the fashion world. Then came Joe Eula [a featured character in the Netflix series] and fashion illustrator extraordinaire, whose gossamer brush strokes brought Halston's flowing fabrics to life in full color." 

As the illustrations are all for Halston they are not signed by the different fashion illustrators that may have penned them, which is typical of any fashion house. But all have a very similar aesthetic: bold confident thick markered lines, filled in with solid washes of color and the occasional pattern. Halston figures are almost always faceless given sometimes a lip and once in a while an eye, but always have a air of personality and elegance to their stance and poses. 

The exhibit took up the entire museum, each gallery filled with a different era of Halston's career. His beautifully design garments on mannequins in the centers of the rooms, sketches lining the walls, countless orchids, and timelines of his career and personal notes from the likes of Liza Minnelli, Lee Radziwill, Beverly Johnson and Elizabeth Taylor in the corridors. It was such a treat to revisit my camera roll and this exhibit again. I hope you enjoyed the Halston fashion illustrations I chose to spotlight, because I have to tell you, there were many to choose from! Who knows, maybe the popularity of the series will have them put the exhibit on again! Wouldn't that be amazing. But in case that doesn't happen you could always pick up Lesley's book. 

(Quotes taken from Halston Style exhibition at Nassau County Museum of Art) 

If you liked this post, you should check out: 

• Punk: Chaos to Couture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art 
• Preview of 'Charles James: Beyond Fashion' Exhibit 
• Fashion Week Spring 2010 Collections

Brooke Hagel x Woops! Macaron Collaboration

Today I am launching my first collaboration of illustrated macarons with Woops! and I couldn't be more excited about it. This limited edition collection was created especially for Mother's Day with nurturing, spirited moms in mind. We toyed with the idea of using my traditional fashion illustrations, accessories and even florals, but in the end my iconic bunhead silhouettes won out and I'm so pleased we went with them! I think they're the perfect personality-filled people to send to moms, aunts, grandmas or a  friend to just say "I'm thinking of you." I'm so excited to take my bunheads on this sweet collaborative journey with Woops! by transforming my fashion figures into mothering figures. I was thinking about the women in our lives who are nurturing, loving and spirited, celebrating the women who have raised, supported, encouraged and loved us through it all. This collection is for each person to thank the special woman in their life. If you look closely at the figures you will you find a pregnant figure, a figure holding a baby, a figure with a child, and of course the free spirited strong women that we all admire. 

I created three different macaron designs with my bunheads as well as three different box sleeves for you to choose from so theres something to fit everyone. One box is an all over pattern solely of bunheads dancing, prancing and stretching about (see below), another box is solid faint pink and has the bunheads gathered in a frame around my handwritten note saying “Mom, good job. I turned out perfect.” and the third box is also a petal pink with wider open pattern of the bunheads and a quote in the center typed “Aways together, never apart, Maybe in distance but, never in heart.” Which I thought was a beautiful sentiment for all those who can't be with their loved ones, especially at this time, and after this difficult year. All the boxes have my artist statement on the bottom as well as mine and Woops! logos.

In addition to designing the macarons and the boxes, I also curated the boxes with my favorite flavors. You know I have quite the sweet tooth so I took this job very seriously taste testing all the flavors to find the very best for my favorites box! You can order my assorted curated favorites in a box of 9 or 18. To have them arrive by Mother's Day order's need to be placed no later than May 4th, and all orders ship free! I can't wait for you and your loved ones to try them! 

Similar posts to check out: 

• Hand Painted Bunhead Ornaments
• Women's March
• Party Sketching for Gotham Magazine & Lands End