Drawing Fashion: The Art of Kenneth Paul Block

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Kenneth Paul Block is one of the most influential fashion illustrators of the twentieth century. His childhood dream was \"...to draw glamorous ladies in beautiful clothes.\" After graduating from Parsons School of Design, New York City, his first job was at the powerful Women's Wear Daily in the 1950s. This association lasted over thirty years during which Kenneth witnessed and recorded one of the most important periods in fashion history: the postwar shift as the exclusive world of couture transformed into pret-a-porter.

Attending all the major fashion shows in Paris, London, and New York, Kenneth was the first one on the scene, drawing the latest style-setting clothes from such venerable houses as Balenciaga, Chanel, and Saint Laurent. He also documented the up-and-coming designers of the time, including Marc Jacobs, Perry Ellis, amd Halston. He was well known in society circles, sketching Gloria Vanderbilt and the Duchess of Windsor. Kenneth also reported on sensational parties in Palm Beach and New York attended by Babe Paley and Jackie Kennedy Onassis and created a unique archive of the era.

Drawing Fashion: The Art of Kenneth Paul Block is the first monograph on the artist and brings together a lifetime of drawings, watercolours, and observations. Since fashion illustration disappeared from publications as photography took over, an added emphasis to this book is that it is an important historical document. Drawing Fashion, designed by Shahid & Company, captures a critical moment in time when fashion, art, and commerce coincided.

AUTHOR:
Susan Mulcahy is a writer, editor, and media consultant based in New York. She is a former editor of the New York Post's \"Page Six,\" editor in chief of Avenue magazine; vice-president of Starwave, the early Web content company; producer of the recently-released CD recordings of the monologue artist Ruth Draper; and the author of My Lips are Sealed.

200 colour images

ISBN: 9780977787548
Author: MULCAHY, SUSAN
Format: Hardcover
Publication date: 20/06/2008
RRP: $190.00
Pages: 216
Dimension: 356mm X 279mm
Imprint: Pointed Leaf Press