Bébé was the nickname given to Christian Bérard by his friend, the French prophet of the arts, Jean Cocteau, on account of his delightful babyface – and the name stuck. Bérard and his lover Boris Kochno were one of the most prominent openly homosexual couples in Paris during the 30s and 40s. A handsome, burly and intentionally unkempt man sporting a wild woolly beard with loveable puppy dog eyes, he accessorised with that essential designer cigarette teetering at the corner of his mouth and dressed his robust frame in a stained, crumpled painter’s overall. But there’s one name that was very much a part of this moment, who you must meet. The creative giants of the day, Picasso, Cocteau, Coco Chanel, May Ray, Beauvoir and Sartre, the Lost Generation and their cultural circle basked in a warm summer evening’s glow of new culture and liberalism. The avant-garde arts flourished, Paris was at the centre of it all and her output was bountiful. By keeping a diary of your sewing, your sketchbook can become a living record, helping you perfect your tried-and-true patterns, and allowing you to avoid repeating the same mistakes.Painter Christian Bérard and Renée, suit by Dior, Le Marais, Paris, August 1947įabulous, free and fashionable, France bloomed in the 1930s. I often find that I don’t realize which alterations I need until my garment has been through the wash a few times and worn in different environments. Once you’ve worn your garment a few times, it’s also worth thinking about if you’ve realized there are additional changes you need to make in the future-capture it in your sketchbook and you’re much more likely to remember. If you are like me and have the memory of a goldfish, then capturing what changes you made to a sewing pattern, or would like to make in the future, is invaluable.Īnnotate your sketches with what alterations you made to the flat pattern (did you change seam allowances? Cut your fabric single layer to make it work?), what changes you made while sewing (did you alter the order of assembly? End up nipping in the waist more?), and any other notes for making it again in the future, such as the fabric requirements or special techniques you needed to use. Often after completing a garment, you may find that next time around you would make a few changes. Sketching out those ideas can help you queue up your projects and make a plan.Īs a sewist, it is rare to nail a project the first time. With fashion sketchbooks you can focus on drawing a single piece of clothing, or you can try to capture an idea for a full outfit or styling.īuying fabric also often sparks lots of garment ideas: sketching quickly allows you to capture them so that when you retrieve something from the depths of your stash, you remember your original intention.įinally, if your mind is overflowing with planned projects, it can be hard to remember them all or decide what to do next. Whether it’s the stylish woman on the metro or a garment in the window of a fancy store, it’s good to capture ideas as soon as you have them. That’s one reason it’s great to have a small fashion sketchbook in your purse at all times, because you never know when inspiration may strike. There are many ways to use these books, but here are a few of the most common:Ĭapturing Inspiration and Planning Outfitsĭo you ever see someone wearing an amazing outfit on the street, think “oh, I must copy that!” and then promptly forget? One of the biggest advantages of fashion sketchbooks is that you really don’t need to be good at drawing! Just use the croquis as an outline and mark on your seamlines and details, and you’ll end up with a great representation of your design. Once you draw on top of the croquis, you’ll have a proportionally correct garment and the croquis will fade into the background, leaving a professional-looking image. To avoid a confusing image, most fashion sketchbooks (though not all) print the croquis in a light color, or use faint dots-you can read more about the approaches of different sketchbooks below. If you’ve ever tried to free-hand draw a person, you’ll know how hard it is to get the proportions right the idea of a fashion sketchbook is that it gives you a shape first, onto which you can draw your garments. Theoretically, a fashion sketchbook could be any pad of paper or book where you draw ideas for garments! However, the key to most specially-designed sketchbooks is that they contain croquis. The word croquis literally translates to "sketch." However, in the fashion world a croquis is a body template from which you sketch.
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