Fashion Journal — Petrov 1940 Fabric Collage

In the spring of 1940, a fashion illustrator working for The Australian Women's Weekly did something that no one in the history of fashion illustration had done before: he built his image not from paint or pencil, but from real fabric. Geoffrey Claude Turton — who signed his work as Petrov — cut pieces of actual plaid wool, arranged them on the page with the precision of a couturier, and produced a cover of such tactile richness and visual sophistication that it stopped readers in their tracks.

The front cover reproduces Petrov's April 27, 1940 fabric collage in full — a fashionable woman in a striking red, green, and yellow plaid coat and matching hat, holding a leash for a black dog as autumn leaves fall around her, the background repeating the same tartan pattern in a cohesive, textile-rich composition built from actual fabric scraps cut and arranged with the precision of a couturier. The back cover presents a close detail of the same composition, revealing the extraordinary tactile quality of Petrov's technique — the individual fabric pieces, the weave of the plaid wool, the precise cutting that gives the figure its elegant silhouette, transforming fashion illustration into textile art.

Product Details

• Format: 5.75 × 8 in (14.6 × 20.3 cm)
• Pages: 150 lined pages (75 sheets)
• Perforated pages — tear out cleanly without damaging the binding
• Paper weight: 90 gsm, suitable for fountain pens and pencils
• Hardcover with matte finish, casewrap sewn binding
• Weight: 400 g (14.1 oz)

Perfect For

• Fashion historians and textile art enthusiasts
• Vintage magazine collectors and Australian cultural history lovers
• Fashion designers, illustrators, and collage artists
• Students and educators of fashion illustration history
• Everyday writing, fashion sketches, and creative journaling
• Thoughtful gifts for anyone captivated by 1940s wartime elegance and craft

Read more: Petrov and the Art of the Fabric Collage