Cassandra Rhodin

Art & Expression: Cassandra Rhodin

The protagonist of Art & Expression for this month is one of my absolute favourite artists. I'm talking about the Sweden's most popular fashion illustrators, known by every fashionista and mentioned in almost every fashion and art blogs over the internet... I'm talking about Cassandra Rhodin, of course! We don't much about her, she cares to keep her privacy but this doesn't prevent us to talk about her and her amazing works.

With her particular and original technique, she represents in drawings fashion through her personal point of view. Her works are inspired by 20's and 30's style and flapper girls, embellished by a waise use of black and white, fascinating and suggestive. 

Surrounded by an atmosphere of timeless glamour she paints the darkest side of fashion; her subjects appear, in fact, "different" in someway: limbs are disproportionate, too long; their look is penetrating; they are enigmatic, they look sad (almost melhancolic) but proud. If her drawings are somehow dark, they're also delicate thanks to the utilization of watercolors. Sometimes her ladies, powerful and elegant, are escorted by men or animals that serve to enphase the contrast.

 Her personal and original style is very distinctive and moody and there's a very nice commercial quality in her works that is perfect to use for advertising campaigns. She worked, in fact, with big names of fashion scene from Urban Outfitters to Vogue Australia, passing by Nylon, Elle and H&M for which she created a special collection of household items. One of her best creations are made for charity the foundation All Children in collaboration with UNICEF (a great heart for a great artist).

Well as a gret illustrator, she also is an amazing fashion designer. In 2006, in fact, she created her first fashion brand dedicated to kids, amed Mini Rodini. The story of the name is very nice to tell, with a little  touch of romance: it seems that Cassandra found a picture of her great-grandfather in an antique shop (image the wonder of found your family memories scattered all around the world!) with the name Rodini in behind. So she decided the name of her brand and launched in the biggest stores in Stockholm. 

From Sweden has been launched in the rest of Europe and USA, on sale by Coin and her website. And how not to mention her wallpaper collection? From models to patterns of Story of love collection, there's just spoiled for choice!

I truly do love her, she's an unusual artist, "different" from "classic" fashion illustrators. I think she's very talented, of course, but what I particularly like the most about her is her very extremely unique style.

What do you think about? Do you like her too?