Très Parisien, 1923, No. 2: Créations "LA TUNIQUE RADIAH "... 1923

This 1923 fashion plate, whose artist is unknown, presents two visions of "La Tunique Radiah" on creamy paper. You can almost feel the artist’s hand carefully placing each line, each delicate area of shading, building the textures of the dresses. I imagine the artist absorbed in this work, thinking about the shine of pearls and how to capture their essence with ink. What would it have been like to be alive then? Were they thinking about capturing the energy of the flappers, too? Look at how the artist uses the graphic quality of the medium to suggest the embellishments on the dresses. It's a mix of careful precision and lively mark-making, much like the fashion of the time! The artist really captures the beauty, extravagance and modernity that are so characteristic of the Art Deco. Painters are always in conversation with each other, even across time. Each work is an echo of the past and a whisper to the future. It's an embodied expression that embraces all the mess and magic of being human.