I had the pleasure of attending the IED Fashion Alquimia, the graduate show of the Fashion Design students, in Barcelona, on July 4th. It was great seeing how talented they were, and hey, maybe we’ll see them success! Just like Alexander McQueen presented his designs at Central Saint Martins, the next big designer could be among them… I wrote an article about the collections for Absolut Mode Society, you can read it here and see the photos of the show.

I visited the school, it was really inspiring (in this post I published photos of the school in Milan). They just moved in, the building used to be a textile factory. It’s not a big change, don’t you think? :)

The collections

David Downton is one of the most famous illustrators in the fashion industry. His style could be compared to René Gruau‘s, but they are still different in some way. The brush strokes are much more visible in Downton’s work, making it more pictorial and spontaneous. He attends the Haute Couture shows and draws sketches of what he sees on the runway (his first work of that kind was for The Financial Times), just like a journalist takes notes on a notebook. The only difference is that David’s “notes” are works of art. He uses gouache, watercolour, oil stick, acrylics, and Rotring ink, his favourite. And he doesn’t post-edit the illustrations on the computer! (via). How amazing must it be to be able to paint so effortlessly.

He’s known also for his portraits. He’s drawn Michelle Obama, Cate Blanchett, Stella Tennant, Catherine Deneuve, Dita Von Teese, or the Mad Men cast. His illustrations are so revealing that they’ve even made it to the Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue‘s cover.