Arturo Elena: "Fashion began to like and attract when I was aware of my body"
Arturo Elena is the Aragonese illustrator who has named the community in the international fashion scene.He has worked for brands such as Loewe, Chanel España, Roberto Verino, Lemoniez, Inditex, L’Oreal Paris, Carrera and Carrera, Audemars Piguet, The Extrème Collection, fabrics Rafael Matías, Benetton and Custo Barcelona among others.
Por Estrella SetuainTienes una capacidad innata para el dibujo. ¿Cuál fue tu primer dibujo?
I like to draw from a very young age.I drew without stopping and there came a time when I realized that I wanted to dedicate me to it.My parents supported me and there all started.My first drawing?I don't remember, I drew everything, what they sent me in class and then on my own what could attract a child: the smurfs, copied comic characters that I liked, and also things to my ball that I don't even remember ... ifwant we go to Teruel and open the trunks.
¿Fuiste autodidacta o tuviste formación académica?
Self -taught, because I only received, like every person who has done an elementary school training and in my case even COU, academic plastic training, but not aimed at what I have turned my profession.The same classes of drawing or plastic were received by others, but I finished them three months before and is not a hesitated.It is the truth, that happened in Bachelor's room, which is what was called at that time.
¿Qué pasó?
Well, I finished three months before the discipline that had to be fulfilled to finish the course.I remember that in that course technical drawing was made and I did not have fun as much as the kind of plastic, but I took the quiet and enjoyed it the same.
Eres de Teruel, como Pertegaz. ¿De dónde nace tu interés por la moda? ¿Lo tuviste como referente?
No, I discovered him when I started working in this world and began to know about characters already consecrated.My thing about getting into the fashion world was almost accidental, because fashion began to like and attract when I was aware of my body, which I suppose it is in adolescence, which is when you start to look at what to wear or what notput on.Together with what I liked the drawing, I began to make figurines and I realized that I liked the fashion world, but then the evolution of my personal circumstances within that world came.
Empezaste a trabajar como asistente de diseño en Barcelona hasta que Victorio y Lucchino se pone en tu camino. Ese fue tu primer encargo como ilustrador de moda.
I started working as a designer assistant and came the point where for some orders of Victorio and Lucchino in Seville I discovered that when I enjoyed it, it was when the illustrator's work was done.As a designer you have to draw a plan so that the employer understands how the garment is and where a cut, a clamp or what is the shape of the contour has to go.That was the technical part, but when I enjoyed it was when the drawing of the garment was made in perspective with his girl inside moving the garment, which is when it is done for catalogs.When I received the orders of Victorio and Lucchino, with whom I filed a beautiful friendship and began to frequent his study, I discovered that my vocation was not that of designer but to draw the designs of others.
¿Cuándo das ese paso del diseño de moda a la ilustración?
It was more or less when Victorio and Lucchino in 92, making it coincide with the Expo de Sevilla, launched a catwalk collection called Carmen and at the same time presented the perfume with the same name.They required my work to make two press folders, one for perfume and one for the presentation of the collection.That folder came to the entire press and among them Cosmopolitan, who contacted me in summer and proposed to make the start cover to the fashion pages of his magazine.I was doing it from 92 to 2008, that the crisis came.
Has colaborado con otras muchas publicaciones de moda, ¿cuáles son?
Elle, Telva, woman today and I donate ... and outside Spain with Angeline’s in France and many other editions that came to me not to take care of work, to talk about it.In Italy, France, China ... I don't have the accountant of all.
¿Con qué marcas comienzas a trabajar cuando empiezas a ser reconocido internacionalmente?
Although in 2008 I ended with Cosmopolitan and work is very restricted in that regard, which for me kept being a monthly payrolCitröen ... and many brands with which I did work for signature image that is much better paid than for editorial work.
¿Cómo pasas de la témpera al rotulador?
I started working with tempera, but in my academic training I had received all the techniques and one of them were the markers.When Carmen arose with Victorio and Lucchino, which was a job that required many images and a speed of delivery, there was already an extensive range of markers that were not limited only to what we knew at a profane or street level, to thethat are required at school.I decided to buy all the markers of a specific brand and used them so that the work was faster and get the same type of textures.
Tienes una técnica única, ningún diseñador utiliza el rotulador como tú. ¿Cómo llegas a ella?
As I was preparing those works I discovered that at some points, to enhance the lights of light they need a tool that did not give me the transparent markers.I turned to another line of markers that were opaque ink.I decided to experiment without fear at some points: I put a target to see how it looked and blurred it with my finger ... I was perfecting it at my own risk and risk.Thus I was controlling the whites in the brightness, it seems very simple explained like this, but at first I did not achieve the textures that are achieved when you accumulate trade and errors.The accumulation of the use of these tools somehow made me find a technique that is not in any book or method, it came out of my own need, nobody told me how to do it.In fact, there are centers and universities that hire me as a professional to show them in practice how I use it, because it is something that is not in books.
También te hacen especial tus figuras desproporcionadas. ¿Por qué recurres a este tipo de dibujo?
Let's say that somehow the definition of the type of model or characters is what gives me the seal.The technique is something that comes later, the first one is fixed is, as you defined now, a certain type of character, particular or peculiar.That was unplanned.Taking into account that we are in the field of fashion illustration, formerly called fashion figurine, where stylized, elongated characters have always been used ... I did not do it with the intention of defining this type of character as an ideal woman, I did it foramusement, but at the same time ensuring that movements, perspective, anatomy, movement and texture of garments were as realistic as possible, so that they seem real characters.So that I did not take mistake I did it as a fun, to make figurine but of characters that are out of reality.In reality you can't find such a girl.But yes, what defines me is the type of character I have created.
En un mundo ya digital, extremadamente rápido, sin tiempo para reposar o meditar los diseños, ¿cómo se adapta una técnica tan manual y artesanal?
In the same question you almost have the answer.As technology and the use of tools that are created by a machine abound both, this is how it will happen with haute couture.I guess everyone knows that it is not the same to buy a prêt-à-porter than a haute couture dress.A haute couture dress carries artisanal finishes and somehow, when you wear it, it differentiates you from chain production.Without taking merit to those who work with this type of more mechanical or computer techniques, I think that what the hand of man is not comparable to what can be done with or can do a machine.If I make a mistake, I have no turning back that then submits it to digitalization, which of course I always have to do it to edit the image and remove the parts in which you have made a mistake.But it is still not the same to see an original handmade than to see an impression.On the other hand, I have the possibility of using Photoshop for editing touches, for that it is useful, I adapt to new technologies;I use it in steps that I had to do on paper before and that gives me more time.
Recientemente has hecho la campaña de promoción de Pose, una producción de Ryan Murphy para Fx. ¿Cómo surge?
Unexpectedly, with an email from his marketing and creativity team in which they proposed this work.We had to make a test image to see if I was able to interpret what they were looking for.They liked it and that resulted in eight images that are all in the networks.It was because they saw my work on the web or social networks and they liked it, without the need to move from Zaragoza.
Precisamente fuiste de esas personas que apostó por vivir en su tierra. Hace mucho que volviste a vivir a Zaragoza, pudiendo hacerlo en cualquier lugar con más vinculación a la moda o que te permitiera un contacto más directo con las marcas. ¿Qué te llevó a quedarte en Aragón?
Although I am from Teruel, I know Zaragoza and lived here before doing so in other places for professional necessity and definitely return.I did it in 98, shortly before digitalization, and the fact of being able to digitize an image and that travel through the Internet allows me to live in Zaragoza or wherever it is.Come here was for a personal issue, but above all it was because it is strategically located between Barcelona and Madrid, which is perfect to have to need to be in either place, the two large professional nuclei for my type of work.Anecdotally, as of 2008, my most weight works have been out of Spain and I have been able to live anywhere.From Zaragoza he has left all the work for the United States and it has not been necessary to move from here, or for previous meetings.
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