Art - Goût - Beauté, Feuillets de l' élégance féminine, Février 1926, No. 66, 6e Année, p. 18 1926

This fashion plate was made in February 1926 for a French magazine using watercolor and ink. The colors are soft and muted, like a faded memory. You see the kind of flat planes and bold outlines we associate with Art Deco. Looking closer, notice how the artist plays with the surface? They render the figures in a very simplified way, almost like paper cutouts, but then add these delicate details to the clothing. It gives the image a sense of depth and texture. And the choice of colors—soft pinks, blues, and greens—evokes a sense of fantasy, almost like you could step into the page and join the models. This work reminds me of Erté, who also worked in fashion illustration at the time and used a similar palette and simplification of form. But more broadly, it’s part of a tradition of artists drawing on the real world but not being trapped by it.