Drawing attention

James Jean's Prada Nymph. Photo / Supplied

To celebrate the 50th anniversary issue of Australian Vogue, there's no A-list celebrity photographed by Annie Leibovitz on the cover, and no edgy photo shoot featuring the latest It-girl model. Instead, the fashion glossy has gone old school, with four cover options each featuring an illustration of Cate Blanchett - a move that's far bolder and more interesting than the usual celebrity cover.

The special anniversary covers, hand-drawn by renowned London based illustrator David Downton, hark back to the days before photography took over as fashion's medium of choice, when illustration was the only way to communicate ideas and garments to readers. "I have to salute Vogue Australia for coming up with the idea ... and for following it through," says Downton. "An illustrated cover is a rarity these days, so to do four felt like a leap of faith." The cover process with Blanchett, who Downton describes as a "proper movie star", was quite the production: a day to do the drawings at the Dorchester in London; hair, makeup, clothes from Balenciaga and McQueen. "But to be honest, in the end it is still about the simple act of drawing ... capturing the moment."

Illustrations can often capture fashion in a way that's completely different to photography - the look is softer, more poetic and old-fashioned.

Think of old Vogue covers with iconic works from artists like Carl Erickson, Rene R. Bouche and Helen Dryden, designer's sketches that form the seed of every collection, the drawings on the packs of retro sewing patterns, or even the charming illustrations in vintage girls' annuals. Laird Borrelli, author of Fashion Illustration Now, wrote that, "photographs, no matter how altered or retouched, will always have some association with reality and by association, truth. I like to think of [fashion illustrations] as prose poems and having more fictional narratives. They are more obviously filtered through an individual vision than photos". Downton agrees. "Illustrators are not designers, it is our job to interpret a designer's work. You strive to represent something faithfully, but also personally."

"A good fashion illustration says something about a moment in time. The way we looked - or wanted to look - and how we wanted to live. The great fashion artists have been able to capture the moment every bit as successfully as the great photographers," says Downton, "For me, [famed fashion illustrator] Rene Gruau is more than the equal of Avedon. Fashion illustration is only superficially superficial."

But however charming these illustrations, photography soon became popular in magazines and beyond, playing a major part in the decline in popularity of fashion illustration. But recently illustrative works have slowly been making somewhat of a comeback, popping up in magazines (Australian Vogue's cover, Curvy, an annual all-girl art book from the team behind Yen magazine, Louise Cuckow's illustrations in Fashion Quarterly and previously on the cover of Viva), becoming increasingly popular online (Garance Dore and Fifi Lapin are two examples; as is Ruben Toledo with his watercolour illustrations for DailyCandy.com), as well as featuring within fashion itself. Illustrated bunny Fifi Lapin - the online creation of an anonymous London based artist - recently teamed up with LeSportsac to produce a range of bags featuring her drawings, and LA-based illustrator Danny Roberts' work has featured on bags and T-Shirts for Gwen Stefani's Harajuku Lovers label. Distinguished illustrator Tanya Ling produced prints for the Louis Vuitton 2009 cruise collection, and locally, Workshop often collaborates with artists each season on their popular printed tees - think Martin Poppelwell, John Pule and John Reynolds. Downton says there are a lot of contributing factors for the return. "One is that there are a lot of exciting and diverse talents out there. A second is certainly economic (generally an illustrator is cheaper and more flexible than a photographer), and a third is that it does hark back to another time. I was once drawing backstage at a Dior couture show, and a model said, 'you're drawing, wow, that's new!'. I remember thinking, it's got so old it's new!"