Full description
Archive of fashion illustration including original drawings, paintings and prints, and other materials such as advertisements, media clippings, magazines, posters, Christmas cards, invitations and photographs. Mexican-born Alfredo Bouret (1926-2018) was one of fashion’s acclaimed illustrators. Born Alfredo Gonzalez Acevez in 1926, Bouret studied part-time at the Mexican School of Art in the 1940s, while working in advertising, and as a costume designer for movies. After winning a design scholarship, he left Mexico for Paris in 1948, and briefly worked as an apprentice designer for Pierre Balmain. From 1948 until 1962 his illustrations appeared in the pages of French and British Vogue. His role was to visit the couture houses of Paris, such as Chanel, Dior, Pierre Cardin and Balenciaga, and make sketches of their latest collections. Bouret was the only illustrator permitted into Balenciaga’s Paris couture house to view and illustrate his collections. In 1962 Bouret opened a Mexicana store in London, where he sold Mexican wares, as well as his own range of Mexican inspired fashions. In 1969 he opened a further Mexicana store in Sydney, under the name of ‘Mexican Bazaar’. The store in Rose Bay closed in 1972, however in 1985 Bouret settled in Sydney with his partner interior designer Lex Robert Aitken, and he became an Australian citizen in 1990. Following the success of the exhibition, Fabsolute: Fashion Illustration by Alfredo Bouret 1940s to 1960s, at the RMIT Gallery in 2007, Aitken donated an archive of Bouret’s fashion illustration to the RMIT Design Archives in 2008. The collection is arranged chronologically and is listed. There are two accession lots, one 0015.2008 contains 9 boxes of material. A detailed inventory is available. Boxes 1 to 4 house fashion illustrations, including drawings, paintings and prints, and some related printed material, such as media clippings. Boxes 6 and 7 house drawings cards, including Christmas cards and media clippings. Box 8 and 9 house books and magazines, including English and French Vogues. Boxes 2 and Box 5 house material relating to Mexican costumes. The second accession lot 0115.2010 comprises one box, including a scrapbook containing newsclippings, photographs, correspondence and biographical information related to the life of Alfredo Bouret, and tearsheets featuring fashions illustrations.
Data time period: 1945 to 1984
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