Fashion illustration flexes strength within industry, no longer competing with photography

Fashion illustration is on the rise in our industry and setting its own rules of engagement. For decades illustration had been displaced by photography which perfectly satisfied the needs of brands’ marketing and communication departments, while art directors, models and highly paid photographers conceived of beautiful editorial for consumers to pore over in magazines. Where once the likes of Kenneth Paul Block sketched the clothes as they appeared on the New York runways from his front row seat, a bank of photographers captured every design detail and could have the images in the hands of social media managers almost immediately.