AlumniSpotlight: @ramsietaylorv

Illustrator Taylor Virgil drops some gems about the world of illustration and working to change the state of representation in the fashion industry.

Virgil is a 2019 graduate of VCU’s Fashion Design program. She is an accomplished illustrator and designer, with many notable accomplishments including having her work featured in Vogue and in the 2017 Yves Saint Laurent VMFA (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts) exhibit. She also studied abroad at VCU’s sister campus in Doha, Qatar, and showed a collection at their annual fashion show.

Taya Coates: How did you first get into illustration, design, and fashion?

Taylor Virgil: When I was young I just started drawing out bodies, probably in elementary school. I have tons of sketchbooks from when I was younger, from just drawing anything to random celebrities. Then my mom bought me this Project Runway set.

TC: I had the same thing!

TV: It started there because my mom was like, “Oh, she can do something.” I was like, “Oh, this is awesome, there are so many possibilities..like people do this.” So since I was six, I wanted to be a fashion designer. I've always drawn but I didn't know fashion illustration was a thing until I got to college and combined these two things that I’m good at into one.

I was a painter in high school. That's how I got into VCU, with paintings. I only had two fashion illustrations in my portfolio. Painting established my love for color, composition, faces, eyes, and lips. In my work I always like to emphasize the eyes and the lips. Portraiture definitely pushed me into drawing people in clothes, but I was designing the clothes. So yeah, I've been doing this for a long time.

TC: I just want to say you were so talented. So during your time at VCU was there a class that challenged you as an illustrator?

TV: I studied abroad in Doha my junior year and the illustration class over there was really intense. It really pushed me to my limits. My professor, Dawn, worked with famous fashion illustrators back in the day in like the 80s, which was absolutely amazing to me.

I was always afraid when he walked around the class because he would get to mine and go “What is this? This is terrible!” It drove me crazy. He was like, “You draw women like men” and he was a Black man in Doha. It was just me and him, two Black people in the class and I'm looking at him like, “You know, good and well, Black women look like this.” That was what I was used to drawing because I really only draw Black women. I was challenging him, and he was challenging me at the same time.

Within those four months of his class, I think it pushed me to refine my style, where it wasn't as hesitant and unsure of its own direction. He made me sit there and be like, this is it, but you have to show that on the paper. You have to be resilient in what your hand has actually laid on that paper; you can't falter. If he comes up and is like, “What is this?” you have to have an answer. You have to know why you're doing it. There has to be a reason. So I was like, okay, here's my reason, and I didn't really listen to him. I was like; this is gonna be my style. I'm pushing you, and you’re pushing me.

That really challenged me, especially because I was away from home. We became really good friends, I think because he could see me improving. He could see me refining those skills. So by the end, I had done much better and he was much more tolerant of my chosen style. So that did push me and it made me think more about colors and just broadening my own ability with illustration.

TC: Definitely. Yeah, I think your style is so specific and that's what makes it so great because it's not like anything else. How did you come to develop that style? Obviously, being Black had some influence, but how did you come to terms with saying “I'm going to draw this way” versus maybe the traditional, skinny croquis?

TV: I have always been a plus-sized woman. When I was younger, it was really hard for me to find clothes. I felt really uncomfortable, not being able to express myself and wear things that made me comfortable. I couldn't really explore the fashion side of me. I think that's why I drew the clothes because I couldn't wear the clothes.

So being a plus-size person, of course, going through fashion school, those aren't the body types that you're not focused on. You're draping on a size two or six mannequins, and you can't fit anything you make. I think we should be learning about my body too, and I did bring that up a couple of times. So just being that person who kind of felt like they were an outsider in fashion, I just decided I was drawing more curvy girls like still smaller waists and like big hips. Then recently, I was like, “I don't look like this. We all don't look like this.” So I decided to push myself into drawing more realistic bodies and showing tummies and rolls and things like that because these are real parts of real bodies. Fashion looks just as beautiful on these bodies and they also need to be celebrated.

TC: It’s so cool that you have some say to change image, maybe even at the production level with your illustrations paving the way. I did notice in some of your artwork, you included third eyes. Does spirituality play into your design at all? Or is that just something personal to you?

TV: Recently, I've been on a mental health journey. I think that third eye, for me, is definitely supposed to represent just being able to see more than what is there in reality. There's so much energy that we have inside of ourselves, that, you know, we kind of push to the back, we don't really pay attention to it. But some of those energies are exactly what kind of caused us to do and say and be the things that we don't necessarily want to do, say and be. My mental health journey has kind of been me opening that eye, and being like, okay, we see this within ourselves and this is something we want to change. So I think I just, I kind of do these things unconsciously.

TC: I think that’s so cool though that it’s just coming out of you when you draw.

TV: Yeah, it just happened. But everything's connected. Everything I do is connected. It's all connected to me, my soul, my mind, and how I'm feeling.

TC: What is your process of drawing an illustration, and how does it translate to design?

TV: Usually there has to be something that kind of makes me tick, to make me put the pencil or Apple Pencil on the paper or iPad. It comes out of nowhere, like, it could really be anything. Usually, it just starts like, something will pop in my head. Then I'll reach for the nearest piece of paper and just start sketching, and sometimes that sketch is really messy. Sometimes it's really refined. The first thing I kind of think about, and this is more illustration and less design; I think of the body or find a reference of a body that I'm going to draw, and then I'll get the body down. Then, I already kind of have an idea of what I want her to wear. Everything that I illustrate is my own design.

So while illustrating, I'm still designing and the same thing happens when I design because the body is still such a big part of my designs. I have to get those proportions right so that I can see the clothes properly on the body. So yeah, it's definitely the idea, and then settling it down, and then kind of looking at, like, how can I compose this, and then it ends up looking like a fashion illustration, right? If I'm just designing, then it's like a scribble, but it still looks good, because I like to draw. I really think my illustration process and my design process are merging.

TC: I did also notice that you had a blog. I'm a writer, so that made me really excited. Do you have any other creative outlets? I know you mentioned painting earlier on.

TV: Writing has always been kind of a thing that I've been into. I was a really good writer in high school. Of course, like short stories and stuff like that, you know, the usual. My mom was always like, you should do journalism. I was like, “Hmm, maybe”, and I never did it. Since I'm doing fashion, I can always, you know just write, since it's kind of from your heart anyway. So writing I definitely like to do, because I like the way I present my voice through writing. I think it's interesting people who know me, when they read what I've written, they’re like “it totally sounds like you.” I don't even care if people don't read the blog, because I read it myself. Sometimes I’m like “awesome, you're actually blogging!” I never thought I'd do it, but I am. Aside from the blog, of course, yeah, I like to paint. I started out oil painting, and I also do acrylic washing. Other than that, I like reading fashion books. I have a small collection of old Vogue magazines, from the 80s. I really like vintage fashion illustrations.

TC: Who do you aim to inspire in your work and what kind of person do you design for?

TV: I designed for the person who is breaking into their confidence and into themselves. The person who's still exploring who they are and what they want to be like. Because, you know, we might think we're established and we might want to be established, but sometimes we just have to sit back and be like, I just need to give myself time to know who I am. That definitely comes from me being that person. I think my designs are kind of all over the place, but they all have this similar, almost geometric, clean, but cool vibe to them. So it's a little bit of everything for everyone. I definitely design on a pretty wide spectrum of this is kind of weird, and this is kind of plain, but like, it's really clean. But yeah, definitely the person looking for themselves, and especially like the little girls who might be chubby, and they don't really see themselves in anything. Those people who need that confidence and need those things to see, just those visuals. That's kind of who I design for.

TC: I know you talked about body representation as a part of your influences. But does just being Black on its own, does that influence your design or your message that you want to communicate in any way?

TV: Definitely, I actually, I think, recently, I've just been solely drawing Black women. There was an instance when I was in high school, I think. I've always just drawn Black people because I went to a predominantly white school, and I was the representation, especially in the arts. And a girl had asked me, she said, “Why do you only draw Black people?” and I said, “because I'm Black. And who else is going to do it?” and that totally shook her to her core. From then on, I was like, this is why I draw Black people because that's, that's what I am and that needs to be represented.

I think our Blackness, there's just something extra there. Like, just being a Black woman in the world that we're in. Like, sometimes I have to sit and look around like, “I am amazing. I am so cute. We are amazing.” Even just going out with my mom and my sister. I'm like, “oh, my goodness, people must look at us and go are they celebrities?” I think there's just so much strength when it comes to Black women, and not just like, you know, stereotypical, “Black women are strong” because we go through so much crap. It's almost like a natural strength, just perseverance in, being who you are, doing what you want to do, and not taking any crap for it. That is something that I have had to grow to learn myself. As Black women, I think we have so many influences in our lives, especially our mothers, our grandmothers, our auntie's, we hear about how cool everybody was back in the day. Oh my gosh, like I want to be an auntie too. Even saying it and knowing what that is as a Black woman it's like we have our own connotations. I think I just have to keep pushing that in my art because I need to represent myself. I also need to represent these other women that I see that are beautiful around me, especially bigger Black women who we don't see a lot of.

TC: That's awesome. Thank you so much. Literally, so much stuff that you said, I'm just sitting here thinking about it. I did want to close out with some advice for current Black students who want to go into fashion, design, or illustration.

TV: So my advice would definitely be to explore and to try as much as you can. To be adventurous, in your style, your choices of colors, and step out of your lane. Sometimes the lane you've been driving in is not the lane you're supposed to be in. Another piece of advice would be, try to combine the things that you like and know you're good at with what you're not as good at. While you're working on the things that you are not as good at, make sure you're putting work into what you're really good at to just keep the balance of being well-rounded. And lastly, wanting to learn, always asking questions, reaching out to people that you look up to. That's how I got my Kimberly Goldson collaboration, and that's how I ended up having work in Vogue. I literally just said, “Hey, can you look at my portfolio.” Just presenting yourself as a learner as a seeker of knowledge is definitely something that will get you further and closer to where you want to be.