Here at Gather.ly, we love giving people awesome and unique opportunities. We also like to mix things up a little and keep our Collective members on their toes.
With this in mind, we were keen to get some illustrators out to the latest London Collections: Men fashion event. Instead of doing the stock standard and sending photographers along, we thought it would be cool to explore the way an illustrator would function under the pressure of a live show. Debenhams helped us make this a reality by hooking us up with two tickets to the E.Tautz show - a classic tailoring label channelling traditional Saville Row cuts with bold colours and accents.
When it comes to inspiration we so often hear that fashion is influenced by the world around us... but what happens if we let ourselves use the garments themselves as the starting point, and try to re-imagine the way they may have been inspired in the first place. We wanted to see what could be inspired by the style at the E. Tautz show.
We called on two of our favourite up and coming Fashion Illustrators to take up the challenge and try their hand at illustrating live menswear, so Eleanor Rose Shenton and Hannah West were each handed a ticket to the E. Tautz show.
Eleanor was reminded of home by the models, the music and the clothes of the E. Tautz show. Hailing originally from Kent, Eleanor grew up by the Herne Bay seaside - a quirky little town with cool beach huts painted with stripes that reminded her of the stripes seen in the collection.
The atmosphere of the collection really reminded me of my childhood and so I decided to base my illustrations around that idea.
As an experienced womenswear illustrator, Eleanor admits that it was quite difficult to draw menswear, as it differs so much from her familiar curvaceous and free lines for women. Eleanor really rose to the challenge of the structured shapes that she is not used to though, especially in the fast paced live environment.
Drawing quickly and frantically at the show to capture the mood and essence of the collection, Eleanor tells me "it was great to sketch fast without thinking too much about the end product, as I always find you create a mark that's unexpected and inspiring."
Having less than ten seconds to capture the essence and mood of each piece in the collection was a fun experience for Eleanor.
At one point I had ten pens in one hand and ten in the other, a pen in my mouth and a pen behind me ear!
Always keen to push her portfolio, Eleanor embraced the challenge to focus herself on objects and people that she finds difficult to draw - resulting in some truly stunning images that have certainly broadened her visual horizons. After the show Eleanor went through her sketches and chose elements that she felt were most successful to develop into finished products.
Hannah was just as excited by the opportunity given to her by Gather.ly. Having just finished her final year of university at the London College of Fashion, Hannah has been used to working on the same project for a long period of time, so she found it refreshing to get some new inspiration for her illustrations.
With the colour palette being one of her highlights of the collection, Hannah transferred this directly to her illustrations. In fact it's clear to see that the colour of the show was a big inspiration to both girls, yet applied in such different manners to create two very different sets of illustrations.
Hannah found that seeing a collection in motion, as well as experiencing the buzzing atmosphere of a catwalk show, was seriously different to sitting in a studio and drawing inspiration from existing imagery.
The experience was really valuable as I’ve been illustrating a lot more menswear recently, and it was great to be able to draw what you’re seeing in person, rather than just from photographs.
It's awesome for us to be able to break the mould for Hannah and give her some fresh inspiration!
Like Eleanor, Hannah enjoyed the flexibility and openness of the brief, so sketched quickly during the show to try and capture the fast pace and favourite elements of inspiration, and then went on to develop some more detailed illustrations afterwards.
It's so intriguing to see how the colours and childhood memories ignited such inspiration for the girls. We're so stoked that they had such a great time and really found the opportunity worthwhile to broaden their skill sets.
Gather.ly is thrilled to be able to offer such unique experiences to young creatives, especially when they find it so worthwhile and produce such beautiful results! If you're interested in getting involved in similar future opportunities then do get in touch to find out more.
