Francois Berthoud: Fashion, Fetish and Fantasies

A handsome collection showcasing the work by one of the fashion world´s foremost illustrators and art directors. Rizzoli was very successful with Dior by Mats Gustafson which shows that there is an audience for high end illustration.Fransois Berthoud is known for his painstakingly produced and meticulously arranged linocuts and his expressive drip paintings and elegant computer graphics have graced the face of countless magazines and advertising campaigns for the world´s most discerning and sought-after fashion brands including Yves-St-Laurent, Bulgari, Chanel, Givenchy, Sonia Rykiel, and Prada. His work presents the conceptual aspect of fashion, maintaining a strict line between the edge of eroticism which he claims to be all important. Emerging as a leading fashion illustrator and art director in the 80s, Berthoud´s distinct style was championed by the legendary Anna Piaggi early on in her avant-garde publication Vanity that was published by Cond Nast. She hailed him by saying that while Franois illustrates fashion in an apparently formal and decorative way, in reality he analyzes his subject in depth and with an elegant sense of detachment before recreating it in his atelier-laboratory. He experiences fashion with a sharp sense of irony and a visual culture rooted in conceptual art. But his style is totally now! Berthoud has a reputation for romantic fashion illustration and for erotica (he was the illustrator for Betony Vernon´s The Boudoir Bible) and where the two often overlap.Featuring essays by Chris Dercon and Daniele Barbieri, the book concludes with aconversation with François Berthoud transcribed by Christian Kämmerling.