Introducing Mélique Street

Mélique Street. Illustrator. Milan.

We recently collaborated with an amazing fashion illustrator based in Milan who created the most beautiful cards to celebrate our 'It's Always Summer Somewhere' collection. Seriously - she is very talented. And from this moment we fell in love with fashion illustration. 

A Short History of Fashion Illustration According to Bec

Fashion illustration was, for centuries, the only form of fashion communication. That is brands would show case their designs through illustration. This has, in recent times, changed with the advent of photography and, of course, smart phones. But, we think fashion illustration is alive and kicking. You only need to search up #fashionillustration to find over 4.5 million posts forming an incredible body of work. 

Illustrators broadly do very different things. Some are more like fine artists who sell their work in galleries or as prints. Some are commercial illustrators who work to a client’s brief. Regardless, they are fashion communicators and we think we should be listening.

Marina - the Artist Behind Mélique Street

Marina Meliksetova is the amazing artist behind Mélique Street. She is trained as both a fashion designer (she studied in Istituto Marangoni Milan) and worked for Versace and Versace Versus (no less!). She is also a fashion illustrator who created Mélique Street 5 years ago and has, since then, collaborated with fashion heavyweights such as Dolce&Gabbana, Tiffany&Co and Christian Dior.

Can. You. Imagine.

Living in Milan, fashion capital of the world and working with incredible, inspirational fashion houses. Envy does not even cover it! Oh and she is incredibly good at what she does too - how amazingly has she captured the 'sexy' in the Molly in Midnight!!

Marina also collaborates in fields that are not directly related to fashion such as museums, Universal Studios, restaurants, the Four Seasons Hotel and singers such as Roisin Murphy. "It's always interesting to mix different forms of art to create something beautiful" says Marina.

Marina is usually commissioned by small brands (like us!) who want to get their collection illustrated to be shown to Instagram fans.  She is also commissioned by big brands such as Dsquared2 or MM6 Maison Margiela who invite her to their fashion shows to illustrate some of their looks and share it with her followers.

Marina tells us that her favourite illustration for us was the Nikki in Leopard - "I loved to illustrate the leopard print dress as this print is very cool and I'd wear it myself". We have to say - we may just agree!

We are gifting a number of these exclusive prints to our guests at the official launch of 'It's Always Summer Somewhere' on Friday, 3 May 2019. Hands up who wants one of their own? We may just have to add them to our packaging...

xxR