Wednesday 7 March 2012

Ted's Drawing Room



Ted Baker collaborates with top illustrators to launch digital fashion portrait service ‘Ted’s Drawing Room’ in the UK and New York To celebrate the in store launch of Ted Baker’s SS12 campaign The Great Exhibitionist and his Private Views, Ted has collaborated with a host of acclaimed illustrators to create a digital fashion portrait service called Ted’s Drawing Room. Launching on 17 March 2012, the initiative will see over 100 lucky customers receive a signed and framed, original, one-off portrait created by one of 11 top illustrators including Jacqueline Bisset, Niki Pilkington and Michael Frith.
Never one to blend into the background Ted’s SS12 collections are positioned as literal works of art this season. Rich prints, sharp silhouettes, a palette of paint-box brights and bold brushstrokes are at the very heart of the collection. Add to that Ted’s unwavering attention to detail and you have a collection that’s sure to be a real talking point and worthy of a walking exhibit.
Ted is now calling on fashion and illustration lovers to ‘put yourself in a picture’ and become a fashion masterpiece as part of Ted’s Drawing Room. Taking place across selected Ted Baker stores in the UK and New York, Ted’s Drawing Room opens in London from midday to 8pm GMT on Saturday 17 March.

Shoppers will be invited to pop into store, try on pieces from the new collection and pose for a photo in one of Ted’s ‘Exhibitionist’ photo booths. An image of their Ted look will be taken using Instagram and the photograph will be automatically beamed straight into the artist’s studio, Ted’s Drawing Room, to be re-created by one of the illustrators as an original piece of artwork. Participating stores in the UK will be London Floral Street, London Bluewater, Brighton, Manchester Trafford, Leeds, Glasgow and Dublin and Soho and Meatpacking in New York

Ted’s Drawing Room will be situated in Ted’s London HQ. Inside 11 illustrators, ranging from pure fashion illustrators; to watercolour portrait artists to contemporary graphic artists, will sit poised to re-create the images using a diverse range of media from traditional pencil and ink through to collage.
As the photos appear in Ted’s Drawing Room the illustrators will ‘choose their muse’ and draw the looks that inspire them most. Ted will send those that have their portrait done a digital copy to share and show off and then a signed, framed original version soon after.

The finished portraits and the photos that inspired them will be exhibited in a gallery on Ted’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/tedbaker   A selection of lucky customers will also receive a time-lapse film of their portrait being created which can then be shared with friends on social networks.

A film crew will be on hand to capture the illustrators hard at work. They will be broadcasting live footage back into participating stores and to Ted’s Facebook page, allowing the public to watch the masters at work and for the subjects of the portraits to tune in and watch their portrait being created!
Ted Baker has worked in collaboration with top illustrator agents’ Debut Art, YCN, Illustration Web, Jelly London as well as some alumni from the LCF Fashion Illustration BA Honours to pull together the illustrative talent.

The illustrators involved range from the more fashion oriented Jacqueline Bissett and Niki Pilkington; to Michael Frith – one of the finest water colourists working today; right through to the lo-fi, quirky caricature of Harry Malt to the intense detail of Matthew Green. Output will be a mixture of accurate, fashion-led portrayals, beautifully showcasing Ted’s SS12 collections right through to completely comedic and abstract interpretations of the subjects dressed Ted to toe.


The full list of illustrators selected to take part is as follows:

Jacqueline Bissett
http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/JacquelineBissett
Miss Led
http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/MissLed/all
Niki Pilkington
http://agency.ycnonline.com/people/portfolio/niki-pilkington/
Emma Lofstrom
http://agency.ycnonline.com/people/portfolio/emma-loefstroem/
Viet Tran
http://www.viettranonline.com/
Harry Malt
http://www.debutart.com/illustration/harry-malt
Serge Seidlitz
http://www.debutart.com/illustration/serge-seidlitz#/illustration
Michael Frith
http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/MichaelFrith/all
Dale Edwin Murray
http://agency.ycnonline.com/people/portfolio/dale-edwin-murray/
Matthew Green
http://agency.ycnonline.com/people/portfolio/matthew-green/
Damien Weighill​
http://www.jellylondon.com/talent/7/Damien%20Weighill/2774/

To demonstrate the variety of illustration styles on offer, Ted has commissioned Niki Pilkington (YCN) to re-draw a women’s wear image from the season’s lookbook and Matthew Green (YCN) to re-create a menswear shot, whilst Harry Malt (Debut Art) has re-created an image of the elusive Ted Baker.

For more information on the initiative, the illustrators involved and a list of participating Ted Baker stores please visit: www.tedbaker.com/selected/ted's_drawing_room/intro.aspx

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