Meet the artist behind our Parisian illustrations

Lovisa Burfitt stumbled into her practice as one of fashion’s most sought after illustrators almost serendipitously. “I wanted to become a designer since I was very small,” she tells me from her idyllic garden in Foix, in Ariège, France.

“I was making clothes from fabrics I found — old curtains and what have you. My dad’s leather jackets.” While studying fashion design at Beckmans College of Design in Stockholm, she discovered illustration. “I just felt like it was made for me,” she says.

Born in Sweden, Burfitt relocated to Paris two decades ago. When we invited her to do a series of Parisian-set illustrations for our debut issue, it brought back memories of her early days in the city of lights. “My first years in Paris, when I was out and about with my friends on bikes, sometimes we would pinch ourselves and say, ‘We live here!’” She recalls. “Biking past the Eiffel Tower of Notre Dame just casually on our way somewhere. It’s so cool, actually, sometimes you forget about it.”

For this feature, Burfitt brought to life a curated selection of the finest pieces from the FW21 Parisian shows. Her sweeping, lyrical style gorgeously fit the dramatic silhouettes and bold colours. But in the end, it’s the inimitable backdrop that makes the story magical. “Paris is so extremely aesthetic,” Burfitt says. “There’s a reason why it’s the most visited place in the world.”