This thesis develops a body of creative work that presents its findings as an illustrated commentary on New Zealand Fashion Week. The research asks the question, “what is the potential of illustration in communicating the content and context of a fashion event?” Accordingly, the thesis outcome, Illus tration as Inquiry: A visual response to New Zealand Fashion Week, is formatted as a bound text that utilises an illustrator’s approach to Horatian satire. The illustrator’s voice is employed as a subjective but informed tool for analysis. In developing a visual dialect, it renegotiates certain conventions in fashion illustration as they relate to pose, form, subject and pro portion.