Fashion: Illustrious

From the Twenties to the Sixties the managing director of British Vogue was Harry W Yoxall, a moustached, ex-army instructor and First World War hero (Military Cross with bar). A brilliant man, constantly bewildered to have stumbled into a world light years away from the mud of the Somme, for 40 years he appeared to find little at Vogue which he liked: wholesalers were "silly firms", couturiers were overwrought egomaniacs "best avoided," photographers were "morbidly suspicious". But Yoxall was passionate about one aspect of the business - fashion illustration - and at Vogue, he was its greatest champion. His time there coincided with the genre's zenith, if it can be measured in terms of extravagance and lack of graphic restraint. Yoxall's favourite illustrator was Rene Gruau. Gruau was a great friend of Christian Dior, which probably endeared Yoxall to him, for Dior was one of the few couturiers he liked, despite the great designer's "egg-shaped, chinless head". In fact, Gruau's sweeping line and signature "G" with a star below it appeared as much in the advertising as the editorial pages of Vogue, for he shaped the commercial face of Dior for over 40 years.

Rene Gruau is now 90 and his exuberant, highly stylised work is being celebrated once more with the publication of a new book. Yoxall is dead, most of the photographers he derided, the illustrators he adored and the couturiers he was ambivalent about are dead too. Gruau is one of the last links to the great days of haute couture. He now divides his time between an apartment in the Avenue Foch, Paris, and a villa in Cannes, which seems right for this boulevardier from a different era. He paints a lot of cats in a faux naif style and quite successfully, too. This endearing, sparkling and modest man, as whimsical as a Balenciaga pouffe-balle, has never been able to take himself seriously and is modest about

his contribution to the history of 20th-century fashion.

That his early work is not as widely recognised today as it should be is partly due to his own reserve, partly because at its apogee his high style seems as remote as the fashions he drew: Griffe, Molyneaux, Lelong, among many others. Nowadays, a commission or two for John Galliano's couture line at Dior would perhaps be as near as he would get to the great days. "Well they want me to do some work," he says, speaking to me by phone from his home in Cannes, "but I don't know ... You know, women in ribbons, I'm sick of them. I like architecture and animals now." But occasionally French Vogue asks him for a drawing and he complies.

As one of the century's iconic image-makers, he was photographed recently for German Vogue with the most soi-disant of Fifties mannequins, Bettina. Though he cares little for fashion now - "they call themselves couturiers but they don't care about women" - he does keep an eye on what's happening. On Givenchy, currently overseen by Alexander McQueen: "Oh, Hubert [de Givenchy], he is a great friend. I mean he is desperate! Oh my lord, what is going on there, it is terrible! Terrible!"

Although he has lived in France since he was a teenager - "I mean, was virtually born there, my mother went there so much" - and despite his name, he was born an Italian, in Rimini, Conte Zavagli-Ricciardelli delle Caminate. Gruau was his mother's maiden name and Rene, well, the other talented fashion illustrators seemed to be called Rene ...

He had wanted to be an architect but apparently mismanagement by a trustee all but wiped out the family's wealth while he and his mother were on a round-the-world trip. He glosses over this "disaster", which by most accounts appears to have restrained his standard of living only momentarily. In 1923, aged 14, he says, he was obliged to support himself by drawing. Despite the patronage of an editor-in-chief in Milan, a friend of his mother's, it didn't go well, initially. His biographer Ulf Poschardt blames this limited success on Italy's nascent fascism, where "fashion was reduced more or less to the level of black shirts".

He moved to Paris and was an overnight success, his drawings appearing in Femina, Flair and French Vogue. He had in between found time for a sojourn in London and designed a well-received collection of clothes for "Olaf", the fashion house of "an odd Norwegian man in Dover Street. They wanted a contract with me but, well, my career was not in London." His biographer maintains that for the young European aristocrat, "turning up on time in the mornings was too great a burden".

In Paris he met Jacques Fath, Pierre Balmain, the young Dior, who was a fledgling illustrator too ("so anxious, so shy") and Hubert de Givenchy. Gruau honed his illustrating skills in the war years, having fled occupied Paris for Cannes (where many fashion houses had relocated), refusing to allow the Nazis to spoil his romantic idyll. "I was lucky, I was one of the few still to work and my style came naturally."

He was a relentless partygoer, wherever "beauty put on a lavish display", and his style reflected his social milieu, and also looked back to the posters of Toulouse-Lautrec and their romantic, infectious freedom. When his friend Christian Dior opened his own couture house in February 1947, Gruau was there and it was "a historic moment", not just for fashion but for Gruau - the new look and a return to high glamour was perfect for his style. Dior was quick to recognise his friend's value to the future of his company. He correctly guessed that the unashamedly poetic vision of Gruau would continue to lend a look of glamour and luxuriance at the same time as the house was moving towards mass-produced ready-to-wear lines.

Gruau's long relationship with Dior - he stamped his imprimatur on the company's perfume and beauty advertising right up to the Eighties with the men's aftershaves Jules and Eau Sauvage - led him away from the magazine world. His relationship with Dior survived his friend's death in 1957, his successor Yves Saint Laurent's brief tenure there, and the long reign of Marc Bohan. And perhaps he will respond to John Galliano's overtures.

Gruau had another sojourn - this time in Hollywood after a time drawing for Harper's Bazaar in New York. He was courted by the film industry as a costume consultant but was disappointed by the stars he met. Elizabeth Taylor was the dullest of all - "completely uninteresting apart from her violet eyes". The dream factory was to Gruau precisely that: he shook his head in amazement that stars got up punctually, drove to the studios, worked, drove to a restaurant in the evening and went home to get up early in the morning. He left after three months.

But he is not completely averse to America, however. He is about to set off for a stay in New York - "very charming but I wouldn't want to live there". And what about a fitting epitaph for his life and work? A little premature. "I'm still vertical, you know"

'Gruau' is published by Schirmer/Mosel, pounds 49.95