Issue link: https://www.balharbourdigital.com/i/175740
"David has made fashion illustration relevant in our fast-moving world." —Thomas Kochs, Claridge's "Controlled spontaneity is my goal," Downton says. "David captures something ephemeral in his drawings," adds Thomas Kochs, the general manager of the ultra-luxurious Claridge's in London, where Downton has been an artist-in-residence for the past two years. An exhibition celebrating his achievements there was on view during London Fashion Week. "His illustrations express more than photography is able to," Kochs explains. "David has made fashion illustration relevant in our fast-moving world." Yet despite his reputation as a maestro in the field, Downton's earliest loyalties leaned more towards cinema than fashion. In the 1960s, the London-based artist grew up in a household that was more sports-centric than fashion-forward or artistically inclined. "I didn't go to galleries or read books about art," he says. "My appreciation came from Disney animation, movie posters, book covers and magazines." "I loved Bond movies, especially the posters," Downton continues. "'Thunderball' and 'You Only Live Twice,' with artwork by Bob McGinnis, were—and remain—the high-water mark for me. I also loved anything by the great Bob Peak, who was the acknowledged master of the artform. He could tackle any genre, from spy movies like 'Modesty Blaise' and 'In Like Flint' to musicals like 'My Fair Lady' and 'Camelot.'" As a kid, Downton would sketch his own versions of McGinnis' and Peak's work. He went on to study illustration and graphics in 86 BAL HARBOUR college and, throughout the 1980s and '90s, he took, as he puts it, "whatever commissions I could get"—from cookbooks and textbooks to theater posters, romance novels and, occasionally, fashion and clothes. A serendipitous assignment came in 1996 when the Financial Times commissioned Downton to travel to Paris and capture the haute couture shows. "The startling thing was to be paid to go to Paris and draw," Downton recalls. "I had never been anywhere on someone else's dime and I had never seen a fashion show, much less a couture show. I wasn't completely naïve. I knew who Valentino and Yves Saint Laurent were. But I certainly never expected to be in a room with them." The experience, he says, was visceral: "It was like entering Narnia—a magic kingdom where everyone in it was beautiful and blessed." The first show he saw was Atelier Versace at the Ritz, wherein the likes of Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Carla Bruni and Christy Turlington strutted down a marble path extended over a swimming pool. "They were all side by side on the catwalk, at the peak of their beauty and power," he says. "It was like a meteor shower. A great supermodel moment." The experience gave Downton a "subject matter, a point of view" for the first time in his career up until that point. And beautiful as they were, it wasn't just the models and the clothes. "It's a David Downton captured Cate Blanchett for Vogue Australia in 2009 and Dita Von Teese for A Magazine, curated by Stephen Jones, this year.