Brooke Hagel of Fabulous Doodles

Art and expression: Fabulous Doodles

For the monthly heading dedicated to art, I have the pleasure to talk to you about an amazing fashion illustrator that I recently discovered on internet. I came across on her blog, Fabulous Doodles, by chance and I immediately fell in love with her works: they're so nice and accurate as to be almost better than the reality represented... It's my pleasure to present to you the "interview" that she did for "Art and expression" by Ladyfairy's closet.

Her name is Brooke Hagel, a nice 29 new yorker freelance fashion illustrator with a drawer full of dreams and projects. After graduating at Fashion Institute of Technology, she majored in fashion design with an art specialization, working on fashion industry, as stylist for television, theatre and art direction and product design and development. She also opened a store on Etsy (www.brooklit.etsy.com) few years ago that has been succesfull and brought her many great freelance opportunities. And she created a blog too:  "I started Fabulous Doodles to journal what I'm working on, what inspires meand to archive fashion illustrations, both from my collection and new discoveries".

About herself she says: "I've been an artist ever since I could hold a crayon, only it's taken me 29 years to own that title and say it proudly without any timidity or fear to sounding pretentious.", and judging by her works, she can say it aloud!

Brooke is really good and actually she's focused on the realization of a new wine label (for which she took care of the illustration that complete each wine) and a project, dedicated to preteens to which she will teach of to illustrate fashion and the construction of her career, trough facebook, twitter, pinterest etc.

Taking a look to her works you can see how she pays attention to what surrounds her and I was impressed by the way she can represent it with great skill and ease, so I asked her from where she gets her inspiration, and she said: "My environment is a huge element of inspiration, seeing people on the street and even my friends and what they're wearing and how they're styling themselves, it influences me. Images as well, such a great layout in a magazine, fun shoot from a fashion blogger, and vintage photos and designers".

To the question about what her relationship with art is and what art means to her, she said: "I'm an artist so I have a close relationship with art. It's a large part of what defines me as a person, and always has. It's beauty, self expression and a creative outlet, for me at least!".

As fashion illustrator I also asked her what fashion means to her and how she can combine fashion with art: "They're actually pretty similar! I mean how one dresses and styles themselves is certainly self expressions as well and can very well be a creative outlet. I combine it easily by drawing and designing fashion illustrations, always striving to make my girls (illustrations) chic and fashion forward".

On a time where young artists express themselves in every possibile way, using almost everything, I asked what are her favourite means of comunication to express her art and her creativity: "It varies. I honestly just love working with my hands. My dad is a potter and my mom used to be a fashion designer and art was always very encouraged in my house. I love ceramics and creating something from a ball of clay, sometimes I love painting and the zen feeling that cake take over when mixing colorsand focusing on your canvas, and obviously I love drawing fashion illustrations".

Following the motto "Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try, so dream big and take some risks", she's always ready to accept new challenges and, to those who want to begin the career of fashion illustrator, she suggests: "Draw everyday. It's true what they say, that practice makes perfect (or as close to it as one can get!), I'm continually surprised by how much my illustrations improve as I continue on this career path".

It was really pleasant to interview this girl and I'm so happy to gave her a little space on my blog. I whis you'll like her works as much as I did. You can find her on twitter, facebook and Etsy to find more about her. As for me, I'll see you next month with Art and expression!

With love, Ladyfairy