Sunday, October 4, 2009

1961 - Black female Fashion Illustrator, Beatrice Bassette

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Among members of this generation, as I'm sure many of you are aware, at least every 4th person is a fashion design major, has a clothing line, or is somehow connected to the garment industry. We're a generation of creative loafers and fashion is among our chosen trades.

Before fashion illustration was point and click and graphic tees could be designed by people like me, with little to no artistic ability, trailblazing women like Beatrice Bassette laid the groundwork for true innovation and creativity in fashion and marketing.



Who doesn't love a good tale of triumph born of tragedy? Once widowed, Bassette decided to, as she'd always dreamed, learn to do fashion illustration.


For Mad Men viewers, Beatrice Bassette's job was similar to Sal Ramano's at Sterling/Cooper. She designed the artwork for advertisements and brought designers' visions to life.










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5 comments:

  1. fascinating--thx for postg!

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  2. Fascinating. As a black fashion illustrator (whose name also happens to be O'Neal) I can't tell you how thrilled I am for this little African American History lesson. When I was teenager in High School the only black fashion illustrator I knew of was Glen Tunstull. Thanks for the info.

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  3. Picture is so old but its really enjoy watching this.

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  4. I love the vintage feel of these photos!

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