Manish Arora is a fashion designer now designing for the Paco Rabanne fashion house. I am looking at his work because I can see a strong link to colour, design and pattern that I have come across in my previous research that links with my tribal theme. I am aware, however, that the main influence is Indian culture. What I am most interested in is the make up designs produced for his catwalk shows. The bright colours and interesting shapes that are created in such simple yet effective designs really captured my attention. When designing my own catwalk look these are vital aspects that I need to take on board. I need to be able to capture the attention of the audience, however, create a look that can still be seen and appreciated from a distance. My two favourite make up looks I have seen in Manish Arora's catwalk shows are, the S/S 12 Paris Fashion Week, as the look was dramatic with masks of colour covering the eyes and intricate stick on eyebrows. This Look was Produced by make-up artist Carole Lasnier. The second look that captured my attention was from the, London Fashion Week A/W 2007. The look was striking with bold pattern applied to the head. The colour theme was mainly monochrome however there was a splash of colour which was very effective.
Looking at images of my chosen tribes, Surma and Mursi, it is obvious that I need to take inspiration for the hair to be very creative by attaching things into the hair such as flowers, leaves and twigs. I was thinking about how I could do this and using some plastic ivory leaves I decided that french plaits could be a good way entwining them into the hair. The images show how I have done this, however, I think that I need to incorporate what I have learned from creating structured hair and mix this with attaching decoration to create something much more visually exciting.
After looking at the work of Phyllis Cohen I wanted to get creative and adapt her ideas to fit my theme. The images I have uploaded do not display a look for my final shoot but simply a very experimental session in the studio. There where things about the make up I applied that I like, for example the short black brush strokes over the majority of the face, because although its very simple from far away its is striking and effective. However, the black lines I applied were hard to get level and hard to achieve a sharp edge therefore less effective that I wanted. Looking ahead if I wanted to achieve these lines I would need to make a stencil.
Phyllis Cohen is an art student who has no formal make up training, however, her work is often centered around the face and body. She describes herself as a 'face fanatic' as she has spent years researching and analysing the human face. When I came across her work unexpectedly one day when I was browsing the internet I was interested straight away. The work she produces on the face is detailed and intricate and this is something that I want to draw inspiration from for my editorial look. The other work shown in the images above is 'live sculpture', I think the way in which she had made real people look like statue is amazing! I was also interested in the textures that she has created on the skin and transformed what we see as normal. The images also have a tribal feel to them and the accessories used in the images are always well thought out. www.phylliscohen.co.uk images from wound magazine and tush magazine.
