Ode to Fashion Plates

I was about 10 years old when I discovered Fashion Plates. This was the It toy of the eighties as far as girls were concerned. Do you remember Fashion Plates? Or even know what they are? See below (http://www.hasbro.com/common/instruct/Fashion_Plates_Hot_Styles.pdf for more info):

Notice the feathered hair, puffy sleeves and the flared mini above? Wonderfully evocative of the era, no? You could choose from various head, torso and lower body style options. With a piece of crayon, you then used a kind of reverse silk screening technique and presto, instant fashion illustration. I went gaga over every possible combination and spent days coloring each outfit. It was the beginning of my fashion illustration training…

I used my Fashion Plates so much and created so many bubble-skirted, Flashdance-esque and unspeakably tacky illustrations, I actually rubbed the designs off of the plates. I was very depressed when that happened.

Then I discovered that I can draw my own illustrations. Because I was relatively clueless about the current trends and I didn’t want to merely copy the Fashion Plates, I mainly drew princesses. You may not think it, but it takes a lot of training to be a princess drawer – I’ve been doing it for 20 years. I have amassed an impressive collection of frilly drawings and they look like this:

I’m still not plugged into the fashion world and still don’t know what’s hot or not, but I like to create fashion illustrations like this:

As you can see, there’s a lot of crossover between my princess drawings and fashion illustrations.