Fashion illustration is the transmission of fashion through a diagram; a visual aid of design explained through fashion magazines and fashion illustrators. Various illustrations that describe fashion have existed since the first time clothes existed. Illustration has played an important role for clothes or dress designing since the evolution of fashion and various institutions in charge of teaching fashion illustration have played an important role through practicing fashion design. Fashion illustration is a work of art in which fashion is explained and communicated.

Fashion Illustration is the art of communicating fashion ideas in a visual form that originates with illustration drawing and painting and also known as Fashion sketching. It is mainly used by fashion designers to brainstorm their ideas on paper or digitally. Fashion sketching plays a major role in designing to preview and visualize designs before sewing actual clothing.

But that doesn't mean that a fashion illustrator is a fashion designer because there are two professions. A fashion illustrator will more often work for a magazine book advertising and other media that work on fashion campaigns and fashion sketching. Meanwhile a fashion designer is someone who makes fashion designs from the beginning to the final result of dress designing and designing clothes for some brands.

Fashion illustrations are found in magazines promotional ads of clothes brands and boutiques as stand-alone pieces of artwork. Alternatively technical sketches called flats are used by fashion designers to convey the idea of a design to a patternmaker or fabricator. Technical design sketches in the fashion industry usually stick to strict guidelines but the beauty of illustration is that fashion artists are free to make figure drawings and digital art that are much more creative.

Designers use mediums such as gouache marker pastel and ink to convey the details of garments and the feeling invoked by the artist. With the rise of digital art some fashion illustration artists have begun to create illustrations using computer software. Artists frequently begin some fashion sketching with a sketch of a figure called a croquis and build a look on top of it. The artist takes care to render the fabrics and silhouettes used in the garment. They typically illustrate clothing on a figure with exaggerated 9-head or 10-head proportions. The artist will typically find samples of fabric or swatches to imitate in their drawing.