Fashion’s Craft Comeback

With New York Fashion Week just behind us and London Fashion Week now here, we’re exploring fashion’s return to craft with a look at how illustration and animation are bringing charm, texture and tactility to luxury storytelling.

Earlier this year, Chanel Illustrated landed on shelves across the world. It’s the first book that captures the essence of Chanel through a collection of illustrations from international high fashion illustrators - and a reminder that drawing, it turns out, is fashion’s original medium.

Hand-drawn images have been at the core of fashion since its very beginnings - from Christian Bérard and Rene Gruau to Antonio Lopez and Mats Gustafson. Not unlike a piece of animation or illustration, an understanding of shape, form, and movement is what creates impact both on the runway and on screen. In this recent embrace of hand-craft across campaigns, collaborations, and brand identities, we are reminded of the symbiotic relationship between fashion and drawing.

[Above: Images from Chanel Illustrated. Illustrators featured include Blair Breitenstein & Viola Li.]

Many high fashion brands are turning once again to hand drawn and animated visuals as a way to differentiate themselves in this digital era - placing taste, curation and artistic point of view above all else. Hand-drawn art stands as a deliberate rejection of algorithmically generated, hyper-polished digital noise. By putting the visible mark of the maker front and centre, illustration and animation offer tactile proof of craft that instinctively signals trust, patience, and true luxury.

These artistic mediums can translate abstract mood, narrative and spirit, and bypass real-world constraints, giving brands the freedom to build emotional, dreamlike worlds.

And where fashion usually takes itself - let’s be honest - a bit seriously, illustration & animation introduce charm, play and fun - exaggerating textures and movement to bring life and personality to high fashion storytelling.

Just look at Hermès. This month they released 12 illustrations by Sarah Martinon for their digital storefronts, and previously they’ve spent the past handful of years collaborating with hundreds of artists to create a whimsical universe of animated shorts that turn luxury craft into surreal storytelling. And it’s working. If Fashion Bi’s information is anything to go by, Hermès increased their revenue from approx. €8.5 billion in 2021 to approx €16 billion in 2025.

Or look at Loewe. Their connection to illustration stretches back to hand-painted window displays in the 1940s, evolving directly into their iconic Studio Ghibli collaboration to celebrate a shared obsession with human artistry.

[Above L-R: Alexis Jamet for Hèrmes, Sarah Martinon for Hèrmes, Linda Merad for Hèrmes, María Jesús Contreras for Hèrmes.]

From Gucci x Unskilled Worker and Cartier’s ‘Into The Wild’ to Lacoste x Rayan Takhedmit and Toast x Emma Carlow, luxury fashion brands are showing that craft matters, and proving a dedication to their own product craft, values and ethos through investing in human creativity and craft.

Yet this isn't an opportunistic visual trend. It’s an exercise in brand alignment. For heritage brands it’s a shortcut to authenticity because it mirrors core values, ethos and history. For brands built on slow craft, meticulous hand stitching and human skill, it makes total sense.

[Above L-R: Gucci x Unskilled Worker, Alix Bortoli for Ffern, ]

[Above: Gaia Alari for Merit, Jo Malone]

Illustration and animation allow us to stretch proportions, distort scale, exaggerate the sweep of materials, or emphasise the volume of a sleeve. And they don’t even have to depict a garment or product. They can capture the feeling of a design rather than just its literal geometry and structure.

It doesn’t stop at digital art either, plenty of fashion houses have taken their illustration to walls, windows and spaces in the physical world, creating experiential installations for people to enjoy for real. Earlier this year, Loewe built a garden made entirely from recyclable paper at the Madrid Design Festival, and their stores regularly display one-of-a-kind pieces of art, craft, and design objects.

[Above L-R: Loewe x Studio Ghibli installation, Loewe paper garden,

[Above: Alexis Jamet for Selfridges.]

Ultimately, what better way to honour the time and skill that goes into designing and crafting a product, than to invest in someone else using their time and skill to create something beautiful to promote those products so deservingly?

Early garments were captured with sketches, showing expression and raw artistic intent. That alone is a rich history to build from for any heritage brand. And with this recent obsession with nostalgia, ‘harking back’ to garment sketches, and even making them move with animation, seems like the perfect way to pay tribute to brand heritage, fashion history and the human touch in a truly authentic way.

[Above: Mariana Rodrigues for David M Robinson, Hattie Newman for British Vogue]

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