Research And Application Of René Gruau’s Fashion Illustration

As one of the best-known fashion illustrators in the twentieth century, the creation of Rene Gruau integrated the essence of both Oriental art and Western art and gradually formed his own distinctive illustration style. Distinguished for unique fashion design planting style, Rene Gruau exerted a far-reaching influence to the fashion industry via his paintings. Providing the immature photography technology in the twentieth century, advertising and time contributed to the new resplendence of Gruau’s illustration marketing and clothing show. In the 1950’s, the drawn representation of Christian Dior’s "new look" was completed by Rene Gruau, whose cooperation with Dior brought about the big success of fashion poster. As one of the representatives of the last century, Rene Gruau was characterized by perfect skills and excellent creativity. He actually led the fashion trends at that time with the aid of his refreshing painting style in the fashion industry, especially his creative method of expanding business benefits with arts, which is still worth learning even to our days.The research focus of this paper lies in the artistic style and aesthetic characteristics of Rene Gruau’s illustration. The second part detailedly sorts out Rene Gruau’s creative background and the characteristics of his times as well as systematically analyzes his classic works at each stages, where the different characteristics of his creative works designed for magazine companies, fashion companies, advertising agencies and theater performances are particularly discussed.The third part mainly describes the style and types of Rene Gruau’s fashion illustration. Based on the research on relevant literature, the factors affecting his creative style are analyzed and identified in depth to induce and demonstrate the creative ideas, expression means and aesthetic characteristics of his fashion illustration. The fourth part primarily investigates the creation stories during the cooperation between Rene Gruau and Dior. The market effect of fashion illustration is well embodied through the perfect interpretation of Dior "new style" women’scollection, which, together with poster creation for Dior perfumes, confirms that Rene Gruau’s unique insight into Dior fashion spirit and ability to control the fashion language. The fifth chapter appears to be the author’s creative practice. Based on the understanding of Rene Gruau’s fashion illustration and in combination with my personal creative style, two themes, i.e., "swimsuits" and "dresses", are selected for the creation of fashion illustration series, where the philosophy source, main contents as well as formal language used in the creation process are elucidated. Finally,through the systematic study on Rene Gruau as an individual fashion illustrator, the diversified influences in the formation of artist creative style is recognized, indicating that personal creative experience and social environment also play a pivotal role apart from the influence of art trends, cultural elements, and creative ideas of other artists.In addition, considering the commercial character of fashion illustration, it is worth thinking about its application and induced benefits in the fashion industry. Moreover,further in-depth exploration is required to ascertain how to integrate the art of painting with new times rather than have it completely replaced by images. To this end, we can probably find some laws in Gruau’s cooperation with Dior. Although the support of photographic technology allows consumers to enjoy a more intuitive expression in the fashion industry, the concept of styles remains alive and the painting imagination is associated with endless possibilities, since the essence that art comes from life and goes beyond it proves to be constant.