The New Elegance: the Fashion Illustrator Gerd Grimm

Gerd Grimm (1911-1998), one of the outstanding fashion illustrators of the 20th century, had a feeling for fashion, youth and zeitgeist all his life. He designed covers and illustrations for fashion journals such as “Die Dame”, “Die neue Linie” and “Die Frau”, the forerunner of “Brigitte”. His cover designs for international fashion magazines such as the American “Vogue” made Grimm the most successful German fashion illustrator after the Second World War, who enjoyed international recognition. From 1959 to 1982 the highly regarded campaigns for the Reval cigarette brand were created using the imagery typical of Grimm. After 1960, the annual “Grimms Mädchen” calendar (portraits of female students) made him particularly popular in southern Germany.