['Journal des Dames et des Modes: the Fashion Illustrators', 'Journal des Dames et des Modes: Fashion News'] by Hy. Fournier

['Journal des Dames et des Modes: the Fashion Illustrators', 'Journal des Dames et des Modes: Fashion News'] 1913

0:00

hyfournier

drawing, print

portrait

drawing

art-nouveau

print

figuration

decorative-art

dress

Dimensions: height 175 mm, width 107 mm

This fashion plate, 'Journal des Dames et des Modes,' was printed sometime around 1913 by Hy. Fournier, and shows a monochrome illustration of a fashionable woman. The crisp lines and simplified forms scream "process", like early screen printing, but there's a delicacy here, too, a dance between intention and accident that I find super engaging. The black and white contrast creates a graphic punch, with stripes that somehow both define and dissolve the figure. Look at how the lines of the dress warp slightly to indicate volume. The way the black ink bleeds just a hair over the lines, adding a velvety texture... it's a reminder that even in reproduction, the hand is present. The controlled palette allows for total focus on shape and form, a real testament to the power of limitation. It reminds me a bit of some of Man Ray's fashion photography, the way he played with light and shadow to create these almost abstract compositions. Except Fournier is doing it with ink, not light. Like any great artwork, this resists easy answers. It's an image to get lost in, to let your eye wander.

Comments

rijksmuseum over 1 year ago

⋮

['The Journal des Dames was inspired by the eponymous fashion magazine from the previous century and, like the earlier publication, referred to its illustrations as Costumes Parisiens. These Costumes Parisiens (184 illustrations in total) were drawn in a new, flat, decorative manner by George Barbier, Jan van Brock, Victor Lhuer and other Parisian artists, each with a signature style. Every issue came with two or three separate plates. These showed a wide variety of fashionable apparel, from elegant evening attire to outdoor outfits. A brief caption provides the name of the garment and the material from which it was made, but never the name of a fashion house.', 'The Journal de Dames et des Modes was marketed towards the affluent, sophisticated elite. The text consisted of literary contributions and articles on various topics written by leading Parisian literati. The fashion commentaries discussed the full spectrum of new trends, such as ‘strolling bareheaded by motorcar,’ matching the colour of one’s dress to that of one’s automobile, the impracticality of small umbrellas, the wearing of sky-blue and grass-green wigs, and the vogue among women for large flat hats or for the small toques adorned with feathers that projected from their foreheads like antennae.']