I first fell in love with fashion illustration years ago when I had the opportunity to work and consult on two different books over the course of a year or so. Be Dazzled was the the work of Norman Hartnell and Drawing Fashion was that of Kenneth Paul Block. Much to the chagrin of my alma mater fashion had never been high up on my priorities. While Hartnell was certainly in the vein of the traditional style that I had overlooked all those years before in school, being up close and personal with the illustrations—tasked with cleaning up what was nearly destroyed in a London flood—I could see the confident lines and patterns that I had never paid notice of prior. Any time the media mentions Hartnell in reference to the royal family I pay attention. Not long after working on Be Dazzled, I was asked to consult on the printing of Drawing Fashion. I had never heard of Kenneth Paul Block before, but from that moment on fashion illustration took a different place in my appreciation and inspiration. Block took all the art of the great masters and applied it to fashion. How could you not love it? Needless to say, they were both on my mind when I sat down at the Society of Illustrators a few weeks ago. I didn’t go for the Phantom Thread theme but simply to draw—the dresses and attire were just an added bonus. Not shifting gears of kind, but it was fun to try my hand at something that has inspired me for quite some time and spend an evening with my studio mates Veronica Lawlor and Greg Betza. —Dominick
