Click Click, Fashion Fashion

I am not a big fan of “organised fun”. That is to say fetes, carnivals, festivals and suchlike fill me with a sense of slight dread… that memory of being forced to bob apples, ride unwilling ponies and look at bric-a-brac at school fetes as a child flooding back in (now probably exaggerated) gloriously grim technicolour. So a slightly withered disposition overcame me when I read about Vogue’s retail extravaganza… Fashion’s Big Night Out.

This heavily supported evening (almost the whole of Bond St stayed open late, along with much of the West End and Knightsbridge) took place last evening. Crowds formed outside Louis Vuitton’s Bond Street starship; Stella McCartney’s store on Bruton Street was mobbed with photographers and Matthew Williamson a few doors up was host to some drummers who were enthusiastically perforating eardrums indoors as I passed by.

I just read that back and I do sound somewhat like a dismal old bitch…. but really, let’s just call it what it is… late night shopping… dressed up with a free mani and a cupcake with the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other overexcited people having organised fun too.

Quite happy to avoid this frenzied retail orgydom, my mind was made up not to pay any attention until last week an invitation came through to visit the Fashion Illustration Gallery in Cork Street that same evening. Part of the Big Night Out but by virtue of the gallery’s location on the outskirts, I could not resist the generosity of thought which accompanied the invitation and popped along for a peek. I am so glad I did.

The gallery is the pride and joy of William Ling, whose stylish wife Tanya is herself a fashion illustrator and artist. Tanya was presiding over a live installation in which she and fellow fashion illustrator Jason Brooks were creating artworks there and then on paper shopping bags (inspired by Andy Warhol’s edition of the Campbell’s soup tin printed onto a paper bag, of which there is one in the gallery’s collection, all for sale). These original works, created as a cool fashion crowd looked on, could be purchased in favour of donations to the charity KidsCompany.

Being a little bit brazen I asked if Jason would draw a boy on a bag for me… and having commissioned him in exchange for my donation arranged with Mr Ling, Jason sketched the fabulous picture you see above. I am calling it Boy in Blue Mac. It is my new favourite thing in the world. I can’t say whose outfit inspired him but I was wearing a pale blue mac, Hermes H belt and was carrying my beloved Goyard comores at the time…

Fashion Illustration Gallery
http://www.fashionillustrationgallery.com

Jason Brooks
www.jason–brooks.com