Hippolyte Romain

Hippolyte Romain was born in Paris in 1947. He originally intended to be a journalist but found he was better at drawing than writing. He taught himself to draw by going to museums and copying the work of Toulouse Lautrec, Utrillo and other painters from the turn of the century.

Meanwhile, in order to earn a living, he was a door-to-door salesman, gave boxing lessons and ran a restaurant where he doubled as the chef.

In 1980, Prosper Assouline, the editor of La Mode en Peinture asked him to illustrate the fetes at the Palace a wild Montmartre nightclub and Romain's career took off. Anna Piaggi, eccentially chic journalist, published many of his drawings in Vanity and he became a regular on the fashion scene for La Mode en Peinture, Vogue Sport, Passion, Liberation and l'Express. She herself would provide an ideal subject for Romain's mercilessly satirical pencil. He also covered music for Rock and Folk magazine, food for Gault Millau and culture for La Croix.

Romain has been a war correspondent in Beirut and has done a series of drawings for the German magazine Stern. He also did two series for American Vanity Fair, taking as his subject the brothels off Singapore. He has published a comic-strip book called Ces Cheries and a compilation of his Reportages.

He regularly sketches the Paris collections and is a journalist who tells a story with pictures instead of words. Exposing the foibles and follies of the fashion circus, he is a relentlessly satirical witness of his times. He sometimes mocks the futility of certain fashion editors, the vanity of certain designers and the whole inflated self-importance of their little universe, but he loves the fashion world even if he does not take it seriously.

He says curiosity is his strongest asset. "I was in awe of Paris Match correspondents. I would have loved to write, but I was not good enough".

In the 90's, one of his projects included the documenting of making of Robert Altman's film Pret-a-Porter, a demystification of the world of high fashion, set in Paris.