Here’s a reminder: you don’t have to take your fashion, or your art, seriously. Case in point: Annie Naranian’s wonky fashion illustrations. Centered around fashionable characters with exaggerated features, her illustrations serve as a playful reminder that life–yes, Life!–should be enjoyed.
Based in Toronto, Canada, Naranian admits that her goal is to make other people happy through her work. “I want my audience to find happiness and laughter throughout my art,” she explains on her website. “And this is mainly because I think we take life a little too seriously sometimes.”
This alone makes her work a breath of fresh air in the “fashion goals” landscape of Instagram. “There are many things around me that I am able to get inspired by,” relayed Naranian in an interview with I Love Illustration. “These things range from clothing, books, old magazines, and textiles. The sketches of old masters that I look up to are Christian Lacroix, Karl Lagerfeld, and David Downtown. What I appreciate about the three of these artists (and fashion designers) is their playfulness with figure, shape, and color.”
She adds that playfulness is an intriguing element in the creation of art as it is able to evoke a story by capturing the fundamental parts of the image, without getting too bogged down by the details. Using ink, pastel, acrylic, and watercolors, as well as her good ol’ iPad, Naranian’s creative process is as messy and as playful as the end result.
