"It's all make-believe"

Fashion has stepped through the mirror and into the illustrated world.  Lula, the illustrated editrix of the sketched blog http://thesubjectiknowbest.com/, has turned her pencil to a newly-launched biannual fashion magazine HERSELF- and it’s entirely made up of sketched self-portraits and cartoonised celebrities, even down to the hand-illustrated ads. The magazine is the first of its kind to turn contemporary fashion completely on its pretty head, its pages overflowing with dreamlike drawings and fantastical ideas. Beginning as a simple sketch, the editor Lula- a strange sort of comic strip superprincess- has walked into the illustrated pages of HERSELF magazine- acquiring expensive diamonds, beautiful dresses, and killer heels along the way. The Portrait Issue, as the first edition is called, is more than just a collection of self-portraits by stylish superwomen such as Anna Della Russo and Margherita Missoni- at 248 pages long, it’s a sketchbook tome. The illustrations are certainly magical- whimsical drawings of famous women past, present and imaginary, including Michelle Obama, Kate Moss, Barbie, Cinderella, Frida Kahlo- and even the Greek goddess Athena. There are make-believe interviews with Grace Kelly and Jackie Kennedy; features with Audrey Hepburn and Maria Callas. In this sense, it’s a celebration of fashion as a dynamic, creative and visually striking industry- a reminder that behind today’s perceived ideal of beauty lie real women sketched from legend. In short, the magazine erases all boundaries to the imagination- and instead draws women as they want to be seen. No wands, no magic lamps- just pen and paper.  

Some might see HERSELF as completely pointless and utterly pretentious, and in many ways it’s easy to understand why. What’s the point in drawing comic strip conversations where Marilyn Monroe tells Lula that it’s all make-believe? What’s the point if none of it is real? But I disagree. Isn’t that the point of fashion- it doesn’t matter whether it’s real or drawn, what matters is how you react, whether it makes you think and see the world in a different light. Fashion is art, after all. It exists in the same way Vogue exists, or the same way an art catalogue or comic book exists. It’s not right or wrong, it’s just a new magazine trying to give free reign to our imagination. In the words of that famously-drawn female Jessica Rabbit: “I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way”.

http://herselfmagazine.com/