From the very first issue of Scimparello Magazine, published in 2018, Madame Poule sull’isola che non c’è is a little illustrated treasure we wanted to bring back into the light.

Illustrated fashion stories have a special kind of magic. They allow clothes, characters and imagination to live together in a way that feels free, poetic and wonderfully unexpected. And yet, they often do not get the visibility they deserve. That is why we decided to share this story again in our Fashion Editorial section, as part of the Scimparello archive.

The illustrations are by Elsa Dray-Farges, a French visual artist born in 1985, living and working in Montreuil. A graduate of ENSAAMA and the Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, her practice moves between sculpture and drawing, personal projects and collaborations. Over the years, she has worked with names such as Hermès, Wouters & Hendrix and Bonpoint, while developing an artistic world that explores the transformations of living beings and the place of the marvellous within contemporary reality.

Looking at Madame Poule today, that sense of hybrid beauty, humour and wonder feels more alive than ever. (Petra Barkhof Cristaldi)