BIO

Rosemary Torre inspired a generation of fashion students as Professor of Illustration at The Fashion Institute of Technology, New York and her expertise in the field of fashion illustration has become legendry. As a young illustrator in the 1960s Torre (née Stuglia) worked as a staff fashion illustrator for Saks Fifth Avenue as well as for clients that included the high-end New York department store Franklin Simon, Revlon and Women’s Wear Daily. Torre’s work adhered strictly to the S-curve method of fashion drawing ensuring the physical body carried perfect proportions – a technique that produces exceptionally clean lines, simple forms and solid anatomical figures. Torre’s preferred medium of ink and brush line was influenced by Japanese woodblock prints; a technique that many of the finest fashion illustrators have been influenced by including René Gruau and Gladys Perint Palmer. In 2011 Torre wrote The Feminine Ideal. 20th Century Fashion Illustration (Dover Publications) with a forward written by Harold Koda, the former curator in chief of The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In 1983 Torre co-established The Frances Neady Collection of Original Fashion Illustration, New York. The archive holds over 300 original works by the masters of twentieth century fashion illustration and is considered one of the most prestigious collections worldwide.