In the beginning…For as far back as I can remember, I have always been fascinated by people, their faces, hair and how they express, decorate and adorn themselves.
Being a child of the 1970s, I was lucky enough to grow up in the beautiful Hampshire countryside with creative, slightly eccentric and very hippy parents. Family and friends many of which had long hair and open minds where always drifting in to our house to visit, or even to stay for a while. These were my first canvases to work and experiment with.
One of my first big inspirations visually as a child was whist staying with my Grandmother in London. The city was full of exciting and very interesting cultures. Butterfly ladies in saris, exotic African headscarves, turbans, wonderful braided hair with beads, strange Mohawk manes of peacock blue and flame orange and of course, a myriad of colourful make-up on men and women. This for my 6 year old pair of eyes was a feast and my brain went into total overload with ideas!
Friends would come and go visiting for afternoons of play and tea. Parents would arrive and hardly recognise their off spring who had been converted into fantasy visions of Toyah, Adam Ant and various New Romantic icons. I was in my element! Meanwhile, the practice and lead up to these designs would be taken out on my poor Cindy dolls who would be quiffed to within an inch of their life and then hung out to set and dry by the hair on the washing line or a handy tree. When a gift of a ‘Girlsworld’ came along one Christmas, my inventiveness rose to another level altogether, with the plastic bland smiling head suffering acrylic paint make up and indelible pen hair colour which to my ecstatic excitement would magically go back to blonde by using house hold bleach! How my bedroom / salon / laboratory must have reeked!
For a while in my early teens I attended the Belair Drama School in Guildford, I really enjoyed acting, but used to be far more intrigued by what was going on behind the scenes. Whist getting ready for one production I can remember looking longingly at the make-up artists at work and I think that is what really started to sow the seed of wanting to become one myself.
In my teenage years and twenties, I had started to travel quite bit to North Africa, the Middle East and India, and again, this inspirational fixation with the beauty of people, adornment and the cultural aspect was what I brought home from my journeys and transcribed into drawing, painting, making clothes, interior design, jewellery and of course practicing make-up, mehendi and hair braiding.
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Training so far…So far, I have a patchwork of different hands on skills. I have a 2:1 Degree in Printed and Woven Textiles. With parents in the Oriental rug trade, I have been repairing and restoring carpets for over 15 years. I also have a Diploma in Beauty Specialist Techniques. And design my own jewellery collection, which I sell through a local art gallery, a vintage craft shop and occasionally exhibit at craft fairs.
I have been doing part-time freelance special occasion make-up and working for a couple of Amateur Dramatic companies over the past few years, creating a number of styles including; pantomime, period and ageing make-up. I have found the pace and atmosphere backstage amazing, loving every minute of it. This really has been what has cemented my decision to go into make-up artistry as a career.
At the beginning of this year, I made the decision to go back to college once again and do a 2 year course in hair, film, theatrical, photographic and prosthetic make-up. It will be a great opportunity to acquire a wide variety of skills to offer when looking for contracts and it will also allow my creative side to go a bit wilder!
The Competition
Strangely enough, the L’Oreal & Elle Magazine competition came about the same time in January when I had made a firm decision to go back and study. I absolutely loved the brief. My translation of Julien Mcdonald’s clothing style instinctively took me to the 1920’s, Art Deco, Cubism and Mondrian for colours and the elegant fashions such as the flapper dress. The film industry was beginning to really develop during this era and the need for special screen make-up produced great make-up artists such as Max Factor and Elizabeth Arden to name but a few. Seeing the glamour of the film stars inspired the public to want to create these looks themselves and this was the start of the creation of cosmetic lines for every day wear.
My next step was to go and raid a few L’Oreal make-up counters, and get a palette of samples on paper and to look at products (of which there is a overwhelming range) such as bases, eye colours and textures, and lipsticks. I then went back to ‘the drawing board’ and brainstormed an ideas sheet starting to create various different colour ways on face charts.
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Once I had a good idea of my design, I commandeered two lovely and fairly ‘up for it’ victims to work out variations of my design theme. Happy with the results, I took some pictures, created an A3 mood board and put the whole lot in the post and promptly forgot about it.
In May, L’Oreal contacted me to tell me that I had won. It has actually taken a while for it to sink in and I am still not quite sure if it’s for real! It is a really amazing thing when such an incredible opportunity presents itself when you have been wondering around hoping that it just might in a million years.
So, what’s next? I am very excited to be working backstage at London Fashion Week in September. I will be working with L’Oreal’s top celebrity make-up artist James Kaliardos, which will be incredible, as I know I will learn so much from him. Towards the end of the year, I am due to do some make-up for Basso & Brooke and an Elle photo shoot – again, an incredible opportunity. I can’t wait to get started. Bring on the war paint and brushes!
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Backstage at London Fashion Week - CLICK HERE
Future Entry Titles for my Blog:
- Fashion Make-up
- Stage Make-up
- Special Occasion Make-Up
- Commissions & Various Projects
- Jewellery
