To Richard Haines New York City is an endless runway. When he first moved to the city to pursue illustration, he instead found a successful career as a fashion designer. Through fashion design, working for such brands as Calvin Klein, Perry Ellis, Sean Combs and Bill Blass, he developed a keen eye for the often overlooked details of form, fabric and how a garment falls on the body. This laid a foundation for his illustration work and after years in the world of fashion design, his career has now come full circle allowing him to emerge as one of today's most sought after fashion illustrators.
His wildly popular blog, "What I Saw Today," documented the clothes and attitudes of New York's every day trendsetters and fashion icons of all ages. It is not uncommon to see Haines seated front row at Fashion Week's most desirable shows busily sketching images for magazines and blogs who hire him to record the nuances that cannot be captured on film. His sensitive renderings of his subjects, whether they are men on the street, friends, or fashion models, uncover a deeply sentimental treatment. It is his fascination with the people behind the styles that informs his every stroke, propelling his work beyond mere sketches into the world where art and fashion intersect.
Former fashion designer now illustrator, Richard Haines, sheds couture and garment for this series of gestural male nudes. Loose and enigmatic, the Brooklyn-based artist’s figural sketches have a charismatic, spontaneous presence. Although mostly pared down to flesh and form— tactilely rendered in creamy oil pastel and smokey charcoal—Haines’ subjects are still stylized in a way that is unmistakably fashion.