Fashion and the Art of Pochoir: The Golden Age of Illustration in Paris by April Calahan


Fashion and the Art of Pochoir: The Golden Age of Illustration in Paris
Title : Fashion and the Art of Pochoir: The Golden Age of Illustration in Paris
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0500239398
ISBN-10 : 9780500239391
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 240
Publication : First published October 6, 2015

A celebration of the painstaking hand-stenciling technique known as pochoir , as it was used in luxury fashion publications of the early twentieth century The 1910s and 1920s witnessed an outpouring of luxury fashion publications that used a hand-stenciling technique known as pochoir (French for stencil). This highly refined, painterly technique, which consists of applying layers of gouache paint or watercolor to achieve bold blocks of saturated color, produced works of visual artistry previously unrivaled in the history of fashion illustration. Fashion and the Art of Pochoir presents a carefully curated selection of 300 of the most exceptional illustrations from albums produced by the leading French couturiers, as well as from high-end fashion magazines. Artists from Paul Iribe, Georges Lepape, and George Barbier to Umberto Brunelleschi, Eduardo Garcia Benito, and André E. Marty, these artists inaugurated the alliance between fashion and art with highly stylized depictions of the work of cutting edge designers such as Paul Poiret, Jeanne Lanvin, and Madeleine Vionnet, among others. Complete with biographical descriptions of the featured illustrators and fashion designers, Fashion and the Art of Pochoir celebrates the rare―and rarely seen―images that defined a short but magnificent golden age of fashion illustration. 300 color illustrations


Fashion and the Art of Pochoir: The Golden Age of Illustration in Paris Reviews


  • Lauren Patton

    A truly gorgeous book. It is large format, but that does the most justice to the artwork. The book was much more than I thought it would be, providing copious pochoir artwork alongside biographical information of the artists and the history of fashion chronologically through the early 20th century.

  • Tranvías

    Leí este libro por trabajo, pero es una joya. A cualquiera le gustaría ver las ilustraciones y la historia que cuenta.

  • Kathy

    This is a truly beautiful book. Between 1908 and 1925 a number of fashion publications were produced in Paris using the expensive pochoir printing method. These books and fashion plates were aimed at an exclusive market. They were prohibitively expensive for most people and mostly sold on subscription to the discriminating few. The artists used were the best graphic designers in Paris at the time such as Lepape, Barbier, Wegner and Marty etc.

    Today these books and fashion plates are highly sought after by both collectors and museums. The author has reproduced many of the plates from these publications in high quality. Each publication is given its own chapter with a background explaining the circumstances of its creation. This makes this an easy to read book and its a fantastic reference for each book/magazine. Some of these have had specialty books published about them in the past but this is the best overview of these publications I have seen. The following books/magazines are profiled here:

    1. Les robes de Paul Poiret (1909)
    2. Les Choses de Paul Poiret (1911)
    3. L'eventail et la fourrure chez Paquin (1911)
    4. La mode en mil neuf cen douze chez Marcell Denay
    5. Modes et Manieres d'aujourd'hui
    6. Journal dames et des modes
    7. Gazette du bon ton
    8. Robes et femmes
    9. Le Gout du jour
    10. La Derniere lettre Persane

    This book is highly recommended to anyone interested in either art deco fashion plates or this period of fashion history. Its one of the nicest and most informative books on this very special period of fashion plate history that I have seen in a while.

  • Mills College Library

    741.67209 C141 2015