Fashion illustrator David Downton

What is David Downton known for? Of course, with my work for Vogue magazine. However, his commercial list of clients includes Tiffany & Co, Bloomingdales, Barney's, Harrods, Top Shop, Chanel, Dior, L'Oreal, Harper's Bazaar and V Magazine, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

He is a photographer, perhaps some of the readers will think, drawing a conclusion based on all of the above. But this is absolutely not the case. No, David Downton is not a photographer, he is an illustrator, fashion illustrator. One of the most famous, talented and outstanding fashion illustrators in the world today.

David Downton was born in 1959 in Kent, England. He studied in Canterbury and then in Wolverhampton, where he received a BA in illustration / graphics.

In 1984 David moved to Brighton and began his career as an illustrator. What was he not doing only then! David Downton in those years undertook, literally, everything. He illustrated both science fiction and cookbooks, visited him and projects related to fashion, and he also did advertising, everything, right down to packaging design.

1996 becomes one of the most successful years for David. This year, the Financial Times offers him a job at Paris Haute Couture Week. And, from this year, David Downton begins his very successful career in the field of fashion illustration.

Already in 1998, David took up work on his own project - a series of portraits of the most beautiful women in the world, including Erin O'Connor, Paloma Picasso, Catherine Deneuve, Linda Evangelista, Iman and Dita von Teese.

In 2009, David Downton was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Academy of the Arts of the University of San Francisco. He is also a visiting professor at the London College of Fashion. Blogs on the British Vogue website (https://www.vogue.co.uk/blogs/david-downton).

And also David Downton is the author of Masters of Fashion Illustration, in which he examines the works of the greatest fashion illustrators of the twentieth century, he gives in this book and evaluates his own work.

David Downton's works are graphic, accurate in rendering images, sensual, full of emotions. They are distinguished by smooth lines and the very technique of David's work, most often, just a few strokes with ink or gouache and a drawing is obtained.

In one of his interviews, David Downton noted that the main distinguishing feature of fashion illustration from photography is its individuality, because very few illustrations are created collectively, they, most often, are the result of the work of one person, one author.

David Downton has an answer to the question, why is fashion illustration becoming so popular today?... He tells the story of how he was once noticed by a model working backstage at a Dior show. "Drawing ... wow, this is new!" - she exclaimed. And then he thought that: "the drawing is now so old that it is again perceived exclusively as something new!" In other words, like everything else, interest in fashion illustration is cyclical. Everything new is well forgotten old.

David Downton has two children and he, together with his family, today lives in the countryside an hour's drive from London, and, as he himself says, "far from the world of fashion", which, at the same time, does not prevent him from actively participating in life of the modern fashion industry.