The Art of Eve

The cover story of ProDesign 105 is all about Eve. Ham­ish Thompson takes a look back at the fash­ion illus­tra­tion of Kate Coo­la­han. Words: Ham­ish Thompson. Images: Kate Coo­la­han, cour­tesy Te Papa Pic­ture Lib­rary (online ver­sion of story fea­tures addi­tional images).

Élite Styles – poster. This poster for an eleg­ant Dior-style dress has Coo­la­han com­par­ing rose-patterned cloth with fine bone china. 1962.

The fash­ion illus­tra­tion of Kate Coo­la­han feels uncan­nily famil­iar, though few of us would remem­ber her name. These are the pick of the bunch of fash­ion plate draw­ings that lit up Aus­tralasian news­pa­pers and magazines in the middle of the 20th cen­tury – when the dreams that are dresses were sold with illus­tra­tions rather than pho­to­graphy.
Coo­la­han emig­rated to New Zea­l­and in 1952, where she turned an already bright Sydney career as an “advert­ising and pub­li­city designer” into a long-running stint as New Zealand’s lead­ing fash­ion illus­trator – before mak­ing a name for her­self as an artist-printmaker.

Her hall­mark was a mas­ter­ful com­bin­a­tion of effi­ciency and sen­su­al­ity. She could draw from life (a col­league mod­el­ling the just-delivered new cloth­ing range) and before dawn would have draf­ted evoc­at­ive images that leapt off the page. Her goal was to make the cloth­ing irres­ist­ible and get wealthy women to lift the phone and order a fit­ting.
Her com­bin­a­tion of artistry and com­mer­cial chutzpah speaks for itself in the images. She was an admirer of the pen and wash work of Erica Perl, who illus­trated for US store Lord and Taylor. Coo­la­han looked for Perl’s key ingredi­ent, to mix into her own devel­op­ing style. It was back­grounds, she real­ised. Perl set all her women in the street – street lights, pave­ments, women walk­ing dogs, the Lord and Taylor shop in the distance.

Kate Coo­la­han some­time around the 1950s.

Ball gowns: an example of Coolahan’s early wor. An illus­tra­tion for a news­pa­per advert­ise­ment for Farm­ers and Co., Sydney (ca. 1951).

While New Zea­l­and cli­ents res­isted major pictorial ele­ments – telling Coo­la­han to keep the space for copy – she worked to find ways to bring mood into her images, even within the strict con­fines of the local mar­ket. New Zea­l­and women wouldn’t enter a shop to look at a dress unless they’d been shown the last detail. Coo­la­han recalls her boss was rung once by a cus­tomer say­ing they were going to sue the store because the illus­tra­tion showed eight but­tons down the front of the gar­ment, and when she got there, there were only six.

The Art of Eve – cata­logue. These are the open­ing pages from a cata­logue for a range of swim­wear using new latex fab­rics. Mod­els for cloth­ing and swim­suits were usu­ally young teen­agers – with small 14” waists, min­imal hips and breasts. 1961.

The Art of Eve – cata­logue. 1961.

Kate didn’t mind the prag­mat­ism at the heart of com­mer­cial illus­tra­tion, although she could have done without the snob­bery pre­val­ent in the New Zea­l­and art world, which looked down on those who earned a liv­ing from advert­ising.
But she had never minded swim­ming against the tide. Born in Sydney in 1929, she opted for a five-year illus­tra­tion course at East Sydney Tech­nical Col­lege, when her father told her the fam­ily couldn’t sup­port her through ter­tiary edu­ca­tion. There she found her­self mix­ing with many returned ser­vice­men, who intro­duced their sheltered female coun­ter­parts to the off-limits world of the wharves, bars and brothels. Her work­ing life began against a back­drop of the war’s last­ing leg­acy of psy­cho­lo­gical and phys­ical dam­age and shift­ing atti­tudes to women – when she mar­ried fel­low stu­dent Max (an injured war returnee 20 years her senior) in 1950, she took the role of main bread­win­ner while he con­tin­ued with his pho­to­graphy stud­ies and con­vales­cence.
Coolahan’s first post was with the high-end Sydney store Farm­ers and Co. There she pro­duced illus­tra­tions, posters, pack­aging and wrap­ping paper, and developed cam­paigns
for news­pa­pers and magazines pro­mot­ing the latest fash­ion from France and Italy.

The Junior Miss – cata­logue. This cata­logue sold a range for tod­dlers through to teen­agers. The chil­dren Coo­la­han illus­trated were done out of her head. There were few in the coun­try who could illus­trate children’s fash­ion – the estab­lished children’s book illus­trat­ors worked very slowly in com­par­ison to Kate. 1961.

After see­ing her work in Vogue, a Wel­ling­ton advert­ising man from J Ing­lis Wright offered her a job. He was keen to employ her lux­ury mar­ket know-how. The more relaxed life­style in New Zea­l­and appealed, espe­cially given her husband’s con­tin­ued health prob­lems, so she took the pos­i­tion. “Fem­in­ism”, she says, “allowed me to come to New Zea­l­and.”
After a couple of years Coo­la­han shif­ted to rival firm Carlton Car­ruth­ers du Château and King, who offered more money and a nurse for her hus­band. One of their main cli­ents was Lane Walker Rudkin, which she served as advert­ising and pub­li­city designer. Later in the dec­ade she moved to James Smith Ltd, where she worked on news­pa­per advert­ising campaigns.

James Smiths – news­pa­per advert­ise­ment. Coo­la­han worked with the same prin­ciples of com­pos­i­tion as in paint­ing “… if there are a group of fig­ures – are they all look­ing at the same thing? Are they look­ing at the per­son buy­ing? The import­ant one is look­ing at the buyer.” These images leave space for the copy detail­ing sizes, col­ours, price and buy­ing oppor­tun­it­ies, but still Coo­la­han found ways to incor­por­ate illus­trat­ive ele­ments, par­tic­u­larly favour­ing plants and creatures (from her many sketch books). 1964.

James Smiths — news­pa­per advertisement.

James Smiths — news­pa­per advertisement.

James Smiths – news­pa­per advert­ise­ment. Coo­la­han worked with the same prin­ciples of com­pos­i­tion as in paint­ing “… if there are a group of fig­ures – are they all look­ing at the same thing? Are they look­ing at the per­son buy­ing? The import­ant one is look­ing at the buyer.” These images leave space for the copy detail­ing sizes, col­ours, price and buy­ing oppor­tun­it­ies, but still Coo­la­han found ways to incor­por­ate illus­trat­ive ele­ments, par­tic­u­larly favour­ing plants and creatures (from her many sketch books). 1964.

In the 1960s, Coo­la­han made the con­sidered choice to move away from fash­ion illus­tra­tion (which was being over­run by pho­to­graphy) to edu­ca­tion and skills devel­op­ment for the industry. She had a long involve­ment with Wel­ling­ton Poly­tech­nic – from teach­ing night classes in ana­tomy and draw­ing in 1962 to help­ing Mas­sey and Vic­toria Uni­ver­sit­ies develop MA cur­ricula in print­mak­ing and design. She com­bined teach­ing roles with freel­ance graphic design, and exhib­ited as a fine artist nation­ally and inter­na­tion­ally.
Kate Coo­la­han is still liv­ing in Wel­ling­ton, although she wrapped up even her private teach­ing in 2005. She has rel­ished her work­ing life, mak­ing her own richly dec­or­ated way through a shin­ing com­mer­cial and aca­demic career. Of fash­ion she says “It’s an integ­ral part of human life. What we wear defines the situ­ation into which we’re com­ing. If you are a girl, you are inspec­ted as soon as you go out the door.”

In Love with Summer? – promotional bro­chure (freel­ance work). This post-Beatles style illus­tra­tion was for a bro­chure pro­mot­ing a new Par­a­pa­raumu boutique to the Kapiti-based wives of Wellington’s retired industry lead­ers. The din­ner parties deman­ded a cer­tain stand­ard of dress, so there was a ready mar­ket that could only be reached by a dir­ect mail cam­paign. 1967.

In Love with Summer? – promotional bro­chure (freel­ance work).

Flax is fash­ion – poster. The trend towards less formal fash­ion shows in this poster for a new range of linen cloth­ing – developed from flax linen grown and pro­duced in Ger­aldine. 1967.