Page from Harper’s Bazaar magazine, in which Brodovitch worked for for 24 years.

One of Chanel’s statement little black dresses on a mannequin in a shop window.

Chanel’s famous perfume, she didnt just design clothes. One of the designers stores in Paris, where she was born and raised. Another of Chanel’s statement pieces; the women’s business suit.

Front cover of Harper’s Bazaar magazine from 1956, two years before brodovitch retired from the magazine.

Photograph of Alexey Brodovitch. Known for always having a cigarette in his hand.

Demonstrating the use of negative space, something that Brodovitch was famous for doing with his magazine layout designs.

Alexey Brodo-vitch and Coco Chanel; two of the most influential designers of the fash-ion world, especially between the 1920s-50s. These two designers made history in a revolutionary way within the high end clothing indus-try and layout design in magazine by creating designs including neg-ative space and movement within image and also designing cloth-ing such as the little black dress. These designers are related as their creations were merged to-gether in the fashion industry; de-

signs of outfits would be displayed within magazines therefore they have to work alongside one another and become a piece of art together. When layout design is successful it will attract the attention of the viewer, then leading to the contents of the page. And so if the contents of the page is also successful then it will attract attention in it’s own right. So when the both work as one it can create a masterpiece. That is exactly what Brodovitch and Chanel know how to do so well. Being involved in the fash-ion industry at around the same time also relates the two designers together along with their influences from France and Russia which give their designs the

chic and simple but elegant aesthetic.

Alexey Brodovitch & Coco Chanel

H O L L Y H U C K L E S B Y

A N A C O S T A

Before he became the most influential layout designer of his time, according to Grundberg (1989), in 1930 Brodovitch was offered to become the course leader of the advertising design department at Pennsyl-vania Museum School of Industrial Arts. His aim was to bring the influence of European design to the U.S where he would continue to do this for the rest of his career. Whilst teaching he would rid students of their academic tendencies to release their own style which was in fact a Bauhaus practice. Because of the success of his own portfolio work and also his teachings, he was hired to work as the art director for Harper’s Bazaar magazine to introduce America to the modernist world of design in Europe and compete against the prestigious Vogue magazine (Grundberg, 1989). Brodovitch would “cut paper dolls out of patterned paper or illustrate perfume bottles to look like high key photography - whatever was unlike other fashion magazines” (The Enduring Legacy of Alexey Brodovitch, 1994). By creating his layout designs he would illustrate them first and use pho-tographers to create something visually pleasing (Grundberg, 1989) and then use the rhythm of these photographs to create the final layout design with the lines, curves and angles of the model and other shapes in the photographs to replicate this through text. He wanted his designs to be like no other and so instead of following the rules of other leading magazines to show full outfits and garments, he would chop up photographs, crop and resize them to not just give meaning

He was the pioneer of this idea and using it on a double page spread. His work was also effected by constructivism, moving forward from this idea of placing a photo in a frame, which was common within layout design in America, and instead blowing up the image to fill a page. He radically changed page layout design and made use of open, negative space and because of the isolation of the text it draws the attention to the double page spread and highlights the image and shape of the body of text in a striking way without any distractions.

His approach to design is timeless and still used today because of its bold and striking nature but still with this elegant notion due to the simplicity of the designs which are created by sleek lines and being cautious of using too much colour. For example, in a page layout including a photograph of Christy Turlington from Harper’s Bazaar magazine, we can see that the inspiration for the shape of the text was taken from the lines seen in the photograph bedside it. The first letter of the paragraph had been enlarged to the same proportion of the head of Turlington and also the curve of her back was the idea for the rounded edges of the text box. This is appealing for readers as it demonstrates this rhythmic feeling throughout the page because of the repetition and curved lines, but the initial attraction is due to that white space. Also the use of monochrome colours allows for Turlington’s face to stand out because of its tanned tone, similarly to Brodovitch’s where sometimes in his designs he

would add a bright pop of colour in keep-ing with the sophisticated feeling of the design. This spread captures the same tech-niques as Brodovitch, showing his influence in layout design today and the fact that it is in the same prestigious magazine and they are craving the same effect on readers to-day that he had on his readers shows that his designs are timeless. Although people are still influenced by his designs and cre-ating something similar can have this effect that draws the attention of the reader, they no longer challenge conventions like he did.

Not just the magazine design world has been influenced by Alexey Brodovitch. We have found that the rest of design has been influenced by him one way or another, whether it’s through logo design, branding, product design. Although the heaviest place that his designs have been influenced by has been through layout design, and taking a glance and scouring through magazines you can clearly, almost instantly, notice a design that has been inspired by Brodo-vitch because he is defined by his creations and they are so striking and timeless. Just the simple use of negative space and the relationship between text and image can create something so eye-catching and no one else has been able to achieve this shocking effect since. His work is almost replicated when it comes to looking through magazine page layout design. In a way, rivalling magazines have given in and taken his exceptional and innovative design equations and accepted the fact that they are so successful, so have been forced to use them themselves.

to the garment, for example, but also to the design of the page it’s displayed on so that both the piece and the design can be visually appealing and attract the reader. Only a few years later in his career he rejected the cropping process and leaned towards using fewer and larger images which is where he would mimic photo-graphs in his text and make use of negative space in this way and also overlap the same photographs. Also whilst working at Harper’s Bazaar he would make use of his Russian connections in Paris that he would meet with for painting and sculpting class-es, this including the likes of Nathan Altman and Archipenko. However, after World War II began this couldn’t be achieved for the duration of the war and his work wasn’t influenced as much by his Russian contacts. Looking through more of his later de-signs after the war you can see the heavy influence of surrealism from when he had lived in Paris and the use of hands and eyes that float on the page or fade away into the background and seem to not be attached to anyone giving this eerie notion to the double page spread due to the black back-ground and continuity of these hands as if there is a being with multiple limbs, but with the addition of the elegant nail polish with the small pops of colour it portrays this feeling of a peculiar beauty. Brodovitch was known for focusing on the visual relationship between image and text. He would recreate bodies of text to mimic the photograph beside it and this would be inspired by lines and shapes within the image.

Alexey Brodovitch was a Russian designer, born 1898 and died in 1971. Also according to Purcell (2011) he fled his country, moved to Paris and then to New York where he progressed his design career. During his life in Russia, he was heavily influenced by Bauhaus and constructivist design which encompassed this idea to clean up and simplify. This was then developed when he emigrated to Paris (where he was influenced by surrealism) after the Russian Civil War and then to the U.S (Philadelphia College of Art, 1972) where he became a pioneer of modernism through layout design working for Harper’s Bazaar magazine from 1934 to 1958 (Meggs and Purvis, 2012) where his most influen-tial work was produced and is still inspired by today.

Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, also known as Coco Chanel was a fashion designer who was born in France during the nineteenth century and lived during the twentieth century. In 1895, Chanel was sent to an orphanage where she learned how to sew. A few years later, she got a job as a dressmaker and on the weekends she worked in a tailor shop.

Alexey Brodovitch

About Alexey Brodovitch

When working in the tailer shop in her early years she met Etienne Balsan who was a French socialite and an heir. It was thanks to him that Chanel met Arthur “Boy” Capel, an English million-aire and the love of her life who helped her to create and open her first hat shop that later became a great success.

It was a year before the First World War that Coco Chanel started her real fashion career. At that time, she was selling hats, jackets, sweaters and marinière, a sailor blouse that had a nautical theme. After the war was finished, Chanel produced trou-sers for woman based on sailor’s clothes, named “yachting pants”. During the 20’s she also introduced pea jackets, raincoats, shorts, thick wool coats, collarless tweed suits and the very signifcant little black dress, which has become a statement of hers.

Chanel No. 5, her perfume, came out in 1921 and today is still one of her best-sellers. Its sales, approximately ten thou-sand bottles every year in the whole world.

In 1939, Chanel closed her couture house due to the outbreak of the war and in 1954 the house reopens. The world was shocked by her return and by her rework of pre-war suits. Later on, they became a symbol of luxury and elegance. Especially if they were used with neckless of pearls and a purse.

The main clasp is a gold rotating clasp called Mademoiselle Closure because Mad-emoiselle was the name of the seamstress that created this. Underneath, you can see the name of Chanel engraved.

The bag on the inside is coated with red leather. One thing that I find fascinating and good to refer to is that the bag has seven pockets and three of them are inside in-cluding one pocket for the lipstick. Another one is one with a zip that serves to save important documents and the last one is on the back of the bag and it’s call Mona Lisa Smile and why the pocket has this name? Coco Chanel favourite painting was Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. So, when she designed this pocket she got inspira-tion on the famous smile of Mona Lisa.

“It was in her accessories that Chanel allowed herself to be playful and quirky – something she kept carefully in check else – where – but everything she ever creat-ed displayed her instinctive pragmatism.” (Gautier, 2011)

These days, Chanel inspires every single person in the world. She was the woman who introduced fashion. Since 1983, the brand Chanel has been directed by Karl La-gerfeld. He has been expanding the brand everywhere by creating news items for fashion, jewellery, bags, shoes, make up… The most recent collection that he present was the Fall 2017 Ready-To-Go during the Paris Fashion Week.

Chanel is the 80th most valuable brands in the world. Last year the brand sold out around $5.2 billion of dollars.“The most celebrated fashion designer in history, Gabrielle (“Coco”) Chanel con-tinues to be treated with reverence nearly forty years after her death. No designer can match her for influence on the modern women’s wardrobe. No designer, with the exception of Karl Lagerfeld, inheritor of her mantle at the house of Chanel, has thrived for so long.” (Polan and Tredre, 2009)

Coco Chanel had a distinct style, her own signature. The 3 principles keys for her style are the simplicity, the elegance and the comfort. Black and white was the col-ours most used in her designs, for example, the little black dress (Fig. 4). She got inspi-ration for her clothes by looking at sailor’s and men’s clothes. Chanel had this gift to transform man’s clothes into elegant and comfortable for women’s. “I make fashions women can live in, breathe in, feel com-fortable in and look younger in” (Ewing, 2001), she said. Large fake pearl necklaces (Fig. 5) were one of the pieces of jewellery that she created and sometimes they were featured with her set of clothes. The main focus of Coco Chanel was the style and not the creation of trends.

How I referred before, Chanel No. 5 is one of Chanel bestsellers. The mystery behind the name is just because Chanel’s favourite number was the number five. In terms of the smell, Chanel wanted a classic scent. A scent that it could match with her line of clothes. So, she simply created an identi-fiable floral fragrance. The design of the bottle was created to look elegant, simple, expensive. It’s just a transparent bottle with the name, “Chanel No. 5” and the word “Paris” on it. “What do I wear in bed? Why, Chanel No. 5, of course.” is a sentence that Marilyn Monroe used to say.Another iconic product from Chanel is the Chanel 2.55 that was created is 1955. The Chanel 2.55 is a luxury leather handbag. It is a rectangular shape, quilted with a golden chain that people can use it to put the bag on the shoulder.

Coco Chanel

About Coco Chanel