René Gruau
1909–2004
“Ask any cultivated Frenchman to describe feminine elegance and sooner or later he will mention the drawings of René Gruau, (…) his sketches remain as icons of a lost Paris.”
Vanity Fair, December 2004
Legendary French fashion designers, Christian Dior, Balenciaga, Jacques Fath and their contemporaries turned to René Gruau to sketch their fashion collections and to create the images that they would use to promote their fledging fashion empires. His images defined the sophisticated glamour of post war Paris and every leading fashion magazine vied for his services.
Influenced by Toulouse-Lautrec and the Japanese print masters, his fluid lines and strong colors became symbols of elegance and refinement.
In addition to many books on Gruau’s style and influence, there were exhibitions at Paris Musée du Costume in 1989 and Musée de la Publicité in 1999. His birthplace, Rimini on the Italian Riviera, has a permanent collection in its city museum.
Fashion Pochoirs from
La Gazette du Bon Ton and
Le Journal des Dames et des Modes
Fashion “Pochoirs” from La Gazette du Bon Ton and Le Journal des Dames et des Modes
“With an Art Deco exuberance and Asian exoticism, the vibrant fashion illustrations of the early 20th century are back in vogue.”
Southern Accents, Spring 2006
“Pochoir”, French for stencil, defines a technique of print making popular in France in the early 1900s. It is a labor intensive process of applying brilliant color by hand using a series of cutout stencils. Each plate is an original print using up to thirty stencils in one image. All are hand colored and most are signed in the plate by the illustrator.
The fashion/art/lifestyle magazines of the day, La Gazette du Bon Ton (1911–1925, precursor to Vogue) and Le Journal des Dames et des Modes (1912–1914, founded by fashion couturier Paul Poiret, sold by subscription only, 100 francs per year, only 1,279 copies per issue) were the launching pads for a coterie of fashion illustrators, and the style bibles for the urban leisure class.
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