Waistcoats c. 1936

Isabelle De Strange made this drawing, Waistcoats, with what looks like graphite and colored pencil on paper. Just seeing the way these waistcoats are rendered feels like looking in on a conversation between fashion and art. There's an attention to detail, especially in the stippling on the darker waistcoat, that pulls me in. You can almost feel the texture of the fabric, a kind of obsessive mark-making. The way De Strange combines these meticulous details with the more schematic representation of the waistcoats makes me wonder how the artist conceptualises the relationship between the image and the real thing. De Strange's work reminds me a bit of some of the drawings of clothes made by Andy Warhol when he was working in advertising. Both seem to ask, what happens when you take something from everyday life and put it on display, in a new context? It becomes something else entirely.