MATS GUSTAFSON

Emerging in the late 1970s at a time when fashion illustration had been eclipsed by photography and watercolor as a conceptual medium was barely explored, Mats Gustafson’s independent and applied arts practice nearly single-handedly reinvented the medium. His elegant and minimalist aesthetic reveals how expressive these forms of graphic arts can be. Gustafson’s first editorial commission was assigned by Grace Coddington, then an editor at British Vogue.

In 1980, he moved to New York, where fashion and portrait commissions for American Vogue and others followed. Under the direction of Franca Sozzani, Gustafson became a frequent contributor to Vogue Italia, where his exquisite watercolors and cut-out paperworks were published from the late 1980s through the 1990s. In addition to his work for Hermès, Tiffany & Co., Yohji Yamamoto and Comme des Garçons, Gustafson has illustrated every collection for Dior beginning in 2012. In 2017, Rizzoli published Dior by Mats Gustafson, featuring his interpretations of 25 collections as well as historic designs from the brand’s archive. His other monographs include Swan (2010), Watercolors (2013) and Nude (2018).