Issue link: https://www.balharbourdigital.com/i/175740
"The startling thing was to be paid to go to Paris and draw. I knew who Valentino and Yves Saint Laurent were, but I certainly never expected to be in a room with them." —David Downton combination of the designers' fantasy and the artistry of the people who realize it" that affected him, he says. "It's cliché to say, but couture sells more than clothes. It sells dreams and—to compound the cliché—it's about love." Downton hasn't missed a Paris couture season since. Over the past 17 years, Downton has amassed an impressive roster of clients and put countless models and starlets at ease. "I hadn't met David before I arrived for our first sitting together, which was at a charming boutique hotel in Los Angeles," recalls Dita Von Teese. "I showed up alone, with my suitcase full of corsets and négligées. Of course, this could have been an awkward first meeting, me posing in various stages of deshabille! But David and I became instant friends and have done many sittings together over the years, usually in Paris or London with me always in various stages of undress. He is one of my favorite people in the world—a delight to work with, with an unmatched wit." He has drawn Cate Blanchett for the cover of Australian Vogue; executed frequent commissions for The Telegraph, The Times, Harper's Bazaar and Vanity Fair; and spearheaded ad campaigns for Topshop, Harrods and Absolut. He also had the privilege of designing and illustrating new DVD covers for Criterion Collection films "Belle de Jour," "Lola Montès," and "Jules et Jim"—not quite a Bond poster, but close. Downton has also played a critical role in advocating for and bringing visibility to the field of fashion illustration as a whole, which has been something of a redheaded stepchild in the greater art world. In 2007, he self-published the first of two fashion illustration journals called Pourquoi Pas? And his elegant 2010 tome, "Masters of Fashion Illustration," highlights work by some of the greatest practitioners of the past 100-plus years, including Giovanni Boldini, Étienne Drian, René Bouché, Antonio Lopez, Tony Viramontes and Andy Warhol. Next year, Downton will publish a monograph of his own work and has actively embraced an up-and-coming generation of supermodels, having recently sketched Joan Smalls and Karlie Kloss. Mainly, he says, "I'm having fun. And as my great friend Carmen Dell'Orefice would say, 'If it's not fun, it's no fun!'" 90 BAL HARBOUR CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Downton at Claridge's in London where he's been the artist-in-residence for the last two years; a sketch taken backstage at Yves Saint Laurent in 1999; Cate Blanchett for Vogue Australia in 2009.