Rene Gruau
Encyclopedia
René Gruau was a renowned fashion illustrator whose exaggerated portrayal of fashion design through painting has had a lasting effect on the fashion industry . Because of Gruau's inherent skills and creativity, contributed to a change in the entire fashion industry through the new pictures that represented the already popular designs created by designers in the industry. The benefits, including economic stimulation and enhancement of advertising are still vividly presented in the industry today via a new way of fashion illustration, fashion photography. Gruau became one of the best known and favorite artists of the haute couture
world during the 1940s and 50s working with Femina
, Marie-Claire
, L'Officiel
, L'Album Du Figaro and an assortment of “high-style” magazines. Gruau’s artwork is recognized and commended internationally in some of Paris and Italy's most prestigious art museums including the Louvre
in Paris and the blank in Italy. in addition to his international fame and recognition, "Gruau's artwork is known for its timeless and enduring style".
in Paris in his teens and early 20s. Gruau found it difficult to find work during World War II and ultimately found little work for small or unestablished designers such as Christian Dior
before he became popular during this time. He worked as he could and contributed to the concealment of Jewish refugees.
, Vogue
, Harper's Bazaar
, Flair, L'Officiel, and Madame Figaro, and L'Officiel de la Couture. Gruau was hired by major designers like Pierre Balmain
, Christian Dior, Jacques Fath
, Balenciaga
, Elsa Schiaparelli
, Rochas
, Lanvin
, Elizabeth Arden
, and Hubert de Givenchy
. Gruau gave life to their haute couture clothing and expanded their popularity with his captivating illustrations. Gruau's illustrations reinvented many of the designs and gave them lambency and radiance that the fashion industry previously lacked. Gruau, whose posters often echoed both classical Japanese drawings and Toulouse-Lautrec's sketches of fin de siècle Paris night life, was perhaps best known for creating the marketing images for Miss Dior perfume and for Rouge Baiser lipstick. According to Alan Riding of the New York times,"everything he did, he evoked the glamour and style of the world of high fashion". Because the technical age of the 20th century had yet to emerge, Gruau's pictures were the advertisements of the time and gave marketing and presentation of clothing a new brilliant flare. Gruau's first position as artistic director for advertising was in 1947 with Christian Dior. The two together formed the "New Look" of the time, partially a result of Dior's designs, and partially a result of Gruau's combined interpretation and upgrading of old-style graphic illustration. Gruau formed a friendship with Dior that contributed to their successful collaboration and further enlargement of fashion advertisement, which a primary reason he is mostly remembered for his work with Dior. Gruau moved to the United States in 1948 to work for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. He remained with the magazine for two years, and then went to work as sole illustrator for Flair. There were exhibitions of Gruau's work at the Paris Musée du Costume in 1989 and Musée de la Publicité
in 1999. Rimini, Italy's Riviera, has a permanent collection in its city museum. Today Gruau’s works are collected and exhibited by the finest art institutions including the Louvre in Paris.
and Lido de Paris utilised an old-world aesthetic, celebrating the traditional poster-art graphics of Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard
and the pre-1900 Parisian artists. He continued to work in advertising designing the hugely influential cinema poster for Fellini’s La Dolce Vita
in 1959 and working on campaigns for names such as Dior, Air France, Martini and Omega watches. He has been exhibited internationally at the Paris Musee du Costume and The Musee de la Publicite. The 2011 Spring/Summer Haute Couture Collection of Christian Dior by John Galliano is heavily inspired by Rene's works.
Haute couture
Haute couture refers to the creation of exclusive custom-fitted clothing. Haute couture is made to order for a specific customer, and it is usually made from high-quality, expensive fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable seamstresses,...
world during the 1940s and 50s working with Femina
Femina
Femina is a Latin noun meaning 'woman'.It is the title of five magazines:*Femina , a fortnightly women's magazine owned by the Times Group and published in India since July 1959*Femina , the first women's magazine in Indonesia...
, Marie-Claire
Marie-Claire
Marie-Claire is a given name. It is a combination of the names Marie and Claire, which are both of French origin. It may refer to:* Marie-Claire Alain , organist and organ teacher* Marie-Claire Baldenweg , contemporary artist...
, L'Officiel
L'Officiel
L'Officiel is a French fashion magazine. It has been published in Paris since 1921 and targets upper-income, educated women aged 25 to 49. As of 2006, it had a circulation of 101,719. A men's edition of L'Officiel and eleven foreign editions are also published...
, L'Album Du Figaro and an assortment of “high-style” magazines. Gruau’s artwork is recognized and commended internationally in some of Paris and Italy's most prestigious art museums including the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
in Paris and the blank in Italy. in addition to his international fame and recognition, "Gruau's artwork is known for its timeless and enduring style".
Personal life
Born Renato Zavagli Ricciardelli in Rimini, Italy, on Feb. 4, 1909, Gruau was the son of an Italian count but instead of following in his father's footsteps and accepting the job of royal military commander his passion and inclination for arts led him to a love and pursuance of fine arts. When René's mother, Maria Gruau, a French aristocrat, and his father separated when he was three, he moved to Paris with her. Gruau then took his mother's last name, which is the name he is known by, opposed to his father's last name and royal connection. At 14, Gruau began to support his mother and himself by selling drawings to the Milanese fashion journal Lidel He demonstrated talent for drawing throughout much of his early life and worked as an illustrator for fashion magazines such as Femina, Marie Claire and VogueVogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
in Paris in his teens and early 20s. Gruau found it difficult to find work during World War II and ultimately found little work for small or unestablished designers such as Christian Dior
Christian Dior
Christian Dior , was a French fashion designer, best known as the founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, also called Christian Dior.-Life:...
before he became popular during this time. He worked as he could and contributed to the concealment of Jewish refugees.
Career
Gruau's artistic talent in fashion illustration merited him publication at the age of 14 and by the time he reached 18, he was published internationally, in the US, Italy, and France. In his lifetime, Gruau worked for numerous magazines including Marie-Claire, Femina, ElleElle (magazine)
Elle is a worldwide magazine of French origin that focuses on women's fashion, beauty, health, and entertainment. Elle is also the world's largest fashion magazine. It was founded by Pierre Lazareff and his wife Hélène Gordon in 1945. The title, in French, means "she".-History:Elle was founded in...
, Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
, Harper's Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
, Flair, L'Officiel, and Madame Figaro, and L'Officiel de la Couture. Gruau was hired by major designers like Pierre Balmain
Pierre Balmain
Pierre Alexandre Claudius Balmain was a French fashion designer. Known for sophistication and elegance, he once said that "dressmaking is the architecture of movement."...
, Christian Dior, Jacques Fath
Jacques Fath
Jacques Fath was a French fashion designer who was considered one of the three dominant influences on postwar haute couture, the others being Christian Dior and Pierre Balmain.-Career:The son of André Fath, an Alsatian-Flemish insurance agent, Fath came from a creative family...
, Balenciaga
Balenciaga
Balenciaga is a fashion house founded by Cristóbal Balenciaga, a Basque designer, born in the Basque Country, Spain. He had a reputation as a couturier of uncompromising standards and was referred to as "the master of us all" by Christian Dior. His bubble skirts and odd, feminine, yet ultra-modern...
, Elsa Schiaparelli
Elsa Schiaparelli
Elsa Schiaparelli was an Italian fashion designer. Along with Coco Chanel, her greatest rival, she is regarded as one of the most prominent figures in fashion between the two World Wars. Starting with knitwear, Schiaparelli's designs were heavily influenced by Surrealists like her collaborators...
, Rochas
Rochas
Rochas is a fashion, beauty, and perfume house founded in 1925 by french designer Marcel Rochas, born in 1902 and died in 1955, first designer of 2/3-length coats and skirts with pockets...
, Lanvin
Lanvin (clothing)
Lanvin is a high fashion house founded by Jeanne Lanvin.-History:Lanvin made such beautiful clothes for her daughter that they began to attract the attention of a number of wealthy people who requested copies for their own children...
, Elizabeth Arden
Elizabeth Arden
Florence Nightingale Graham , who went by the business name Elizabeth Arden, was a Canadian-American businesswoman who built a cosmetics empire in the United States. At the peak of her career, she was one of the wealthiest women in the world.-Biography:Arden was born in 1884 at Woodbridge, Ontario,...
, and Hubert de Givenchy
Hubert de Givenchy
Count Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy is a French aristocrat and fashion designer who founded The House of Givenchy in 1952. He is famous for having designed much of the personal and professional wardrobe of Audrey Hepburn, as well as clothing for clients such as Jacqueline Kennedy...
. Gruau gave life to their haute couture clothing and expanded their popularity with his captivating illustrations. Gruau's illustrations reinvented many of the designs and gave them lambency and radiance that the fashion industry previously lacked. Gruau, whose posters often echoed both classical Japanese drawings and Toulouse-Lautrec's sketches of fin de siècle Paris night life, was perhaps best known for creating the marketing images for Miss Dior perfume and for Rouge Baiser lipstick. According to Alan Riding of the New York times,"everything he did, he evoked the glamour and style of the world of high fashion". Because the technical age of the 20th century had yet to emerge, Gruau's pictures were the advertisements of the time and gave marketing and presentation of clothing a new brilliant flare. Gruau's first position as artistic director for advertising was in 1947 with Christian Dior. The two together formed the "New Look" of the time, partially a result of Dior's designs, and partially a result of Gruau's combined interpretation and upgrading of old-style graphic illustration. Gruau formed a friendship with Dior that contributed to their successful collaboration and further enlargement of fashion advertisement, which a primary reason he is mostly remembered for his work with Dior. Gruau moved to the United States in 1948 to work for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. He remained with the magazine for two years, and then went to work as sole illustrator for Flair. There were exhibitions of Gruau's work at the Paris Musée du Costume in 1989 and Musée de la Publicité
Musée de la Publicité
The Musée de la Publicité is a museum of advertising history located in the Louvre's Rohan and Marsan wings, Ier arrondissement, at 107, rue de Rivoli, Paris, France. It is open daily except Monday; an admission fee is charged....
in 1999. Rimini, Italy's Riviera, has a permanent collection in its city museum. Today Gruau’s works are collected and exhibited by the finest art institutions including the Louvre in Paris.
Fashion Illustration
Fashion Illustration is a field in which the best and most creative artists enter to promote the sale and growth of the fashion industry René Gruau is one of the most well known and best fashion Illustrators known due to his flair and unique approach. Fashion Illustration is a huge part of the marketing approach the fashion industry takes in the promotion of its product. Without illustrators such as Gruau the fashion industry as a whole would be far less successful. With his new style of art and fashion, Gruau reshaped marketing for the fashion industry forever and has set the scene for marketing for this industry for many years to come. Fashion Illustration has been around for nearly 500 years Not only do fashion illustrations show a representation or design of a garment, but they also served as a form of art. Fashion illustration shows the presence of hand and is said to be a "visual luxury". More recently, there has been a decline of fashion illustration due to increases in technology. In the late 1930s when Vogue began to replace its celebrated illustrated covers with photographic images the demand for fashion illustration saw a dramatic decline. The first photographic cover of Vogue was a watershed in the history of fashion illustration and a watershed mark of its decline. The replacement of fashion illustration with photographs was criticized greatly by many in the fashion industry. There was a claim that the creativity and unique portrayal of the art of fashion was lost in the photos and the need for illustration is apparent with the loss of that factor. Fashion advertising today is dominated by photography but the influence that fashion illustration had on the industry is the component that set the scene for today's fashion advertising technique.René Gruau’s Impact on Fashion
Illustrations were intensely very important in the haute couture world. Haute Couture is a French phrase for high fashion. Couture means dressmaking, sewing, or needlework and haute means elegant or high, so the two combined imply excellent artistry with the fashioning of garments. The purchase of a haute couture model garment is at the top level of hand customized fashion design and clothing construction made by a couture design house. A model haute couture garment is made specifically for the wearer's measurements and body stance. During Gruau's life-long career he collaborated with fashion houses such as Givenchy, Balenciaga, Lanvin, Schiaparelli and Dior in the fashion area of haute couture. His advertising campaigns for Moulin RougeMoulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge is a cabaret built in 1889 by Joseph Oller, who also owned the Paris Olympia. Close to Montmartre in the Paris district of Pigalle on Boulevard de Clichy in the 18th arrondissement, it is marked by the red windmill on its roof. The closest métro station is Blanche.The Moulin Rouge is...
and Lido de Paris utilised an old-world aesthetic, celebrating the traditional poster-art graphics of Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard was a French painter and printmaker, as well as a founding member of Les Nabis.-Biography:...
and the pre-1900 Parisian artists. He continued to work in advertising designing the hugely influential cinema poster for Fellini’s La Dolce Vita
La Dolce Vita
La Dolce Vita is a 1960 comedy-drama film written and directed by the critically acclaimed director Federico Fellini. The film is a story of a passive journalist's week in Rome, and his search for both happiness and love that will never come...
in 1959 and working on campaigns for names such as Dior, Air France, Martini and Omega watches. He has been exhibited internationally at the Paris Musee du Costume and The Musee de la Publicite. The 2011 Spring/Summer Haute Couture Collection of Christian Dior by John Galliano is heavily inspired by Rene's works.
External links
- René Gruau Official website
- René Gruau Collection