Using the inspiration from Marilyn Minter and The Blitz Kids for the makeup, I have decided to produce something outrageous with colour and lots of jewels and glitter. My design below has kept contemporary elements, such as the thin eyebrows and small, dark lips, teamed with a slick side parting and bob. The bright colours have been influence by The Blitz Kids, as they would use unusual colours, in unusual places. I have used feminine pastel colours, something unusual for this era, and have added contrasting darker and mysterious colours to suggest Sally's split personality. I feel this use of feminine colour represents Sally's flirtatious and sexually confident character. For the hair, the top half is slick and pristine, like Sally's appearance on the surface, then messy and distressed underneath to represent her confused state. When I say confused state, I mean her confusion with her behaviour, acting like an older woman, and who she wants to be and what love is to her.
The influence of Marilyn Minter has come from the use of glitter, jewels and glossy skin. This will reflect Sally's charming and 'showgirl' personality.
I was very pleased with how this look went, but I felt there wasn't something quite right with this look for Sally as it did not fully portray her personality as how I would have wished to. The combination of the turquoise and the gems gave a slight mermaid feel to this look, which is not something I was looking for at all. I felt that the makeup needed to be darker around the eyes, messier and more mysterious. The look appears too well put together, which I feel clashes with her spunky personality. I also was not a massive fan on the gems as they seemed too much, but not in a good way, but I would like to add more glitter as a substitute, and an influence of Marilyn Minter.
Below, I have experimented with water colours to try and inspire me to create a different look with use of darker colours. I feel that focusing less on the products and more on the colour has helped to inspire me to produce something different and more creative.
From this watercolour, I have experimented with eyeshadows in slightly darker shades to add more depth to the look. I have also added a dark lip, which is something very periodic for the 1920s. The glitter is from a white glitter pigment eyeshadow which I have dusted across the darker shades. This has produced a beautiful holographic effect on the skin, which I love!
I also wanted to experiment with this pigment over the black on the lips. Again, it really lifts the dark colour and produces an unusual depth.
I am very pleased with this design and I much prefer the glitter, rather than gaining the sparkle from the gems. I found Marilyn Minter's work incredible, but I feel that the actual concept of her images would be more appropriate for this particular look, rather than using obvious visual influence. I would like to use the model's poses in her work to influence and inspire my model to pose in a similar way. I am also very inspired by her Green Pink Caviar video, and would like to produce something with similar effect.
Sally Bowels is a deceivingly young English
woman living in Berlin. She appears to be a mature woman, possibly in her mid
twenties, but is only nineteen. This is most noticeable with her immature
tantrums and naivity throughout the chapter. Her profession involves being a
Cabaret dancer where she performs through singing and dancing. Alongside this,
Sally goes home with “lovers” and manages to earn herself money here and there
by sponging off wealthy men.
Christopher Isherwood based her character
upon Jean Ross, a woman he met and lodged with in Berlin. She had dark features
and often boasted of her lovers, just as Isherwood has described Sally.
In this particular scene that I have chosen, we meet Sally for the
first time. Fristly we get a brief idea of what she is like from Fritz’s
description of her, “she’s an English girl, an actress…hot stuff.” Then we are
introduced to Sally. The first impression I gain of her is a highly attractive,
classy woman who is in all black. She appears mysterious but overly polite and
impacting. When she continues to talk, I start to see her ‘class’ disappear, "divine decadents", as
she openly talks about her previous night spent with another man. She is very
open to discussing her sex life, and this makes her seem less of a woman, and
more of a sleazy man with lack of self respect.
With this aspect of a personality aside, Sally is very charming and
has a way of getting what she wants through the art of persuasion and flirting.
Her mannerisms are very exaggerated and it seems very show-like, “like a
performance”. With this she brings a presence to the room, as if she was on
stage.
Her appearance is very dark and mysterious, “dark enough to be
Fritz’s sister”, yet this contrasts to her “powdered dead white” skin. Her lips
are described as “cherry lips” which creates the image of an intense red,
glossy and full lip. Her eyes are described as “very large brown”, creating an
almost child-like appearance. These elements create quite a clean and
sophisticated look, but there are other certain aspects to her appearance that
represent her dark and desperate lifestyle of a woman who uses her body for
money. These include the suggestion of layered makeup, “retouched her lips and
eyebrows” a sign that she hasn’t been home yet from the night before, spent
with a man, unwashed and smelling of smoke, alcohol and sex. Then there’s her filthy hands, “stained
by cigarette-smoking and as dirty as a little girl’s”, another sign of poor
hygiene covered up by cosmetics, in this case it is nail varnish rather than
make-up. The fact her hands are compared to little girls is rather ironic as
she is still a very young woman, at only 19, but has hands stained by a party
lifestyle, making them appeared aged. But as desired, Sally wanted to appear like a more mature woman but dresses suggestively, “dressed in black silk”.
This is how I imagine Sally to look in this scene:
Viewed 20.11.14 [online image] Available at: http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/originals/7d/a6/37/7da637348062d9595b7d51d8756a2ea1.jpg
In this scene, we see how Sally is capable of getting her own way
when it comes to men. She asks for something and she will get it almost
instantly, “Sure. Go right ahead”. The way she goes about herself is as a sweet
and innocent young lady who carries herself like a woman who is ten years
older. During this time, there was an odd sexual fascination for children, and
this sickening idea is slightly portrayed in aspects of her naïve and
child-like personality, and also in her described appearance.
As she has just come from a man's house, who she slept with last night, I imagine Sally to be in the same attire and make-up and hair from the night before. Her hair is imperfect and a bit messed up from her "terribly passionate" time last night. I imagine her make-up to be thick and heavily reapplied. Also her make-up will be from a night out, or possibly after performing, so there will be much more glamour than an everyday look.
Sally's main motives in life are money and sex. She links the two of her motives, as she seems to think that having sex with a rich man would equal money. She soon discovers that this is not the case, but can't seem to change her ways and will learn the hard way later in the book.
For my contemporary Sally Bowles, I would like to portray:
Her motives for sex and money
Her attire/hair and make-up from the night before (not fresh, 'caked' and messy)
Her party lifestyle (she may still be under the influence)
How she leaves a lasting impression
She's a performer
Green nails
Her hidden sadness
Mood Board:
From my moodboard, you can see a strong use of pastels with glossy/glittery textures. I would like to create a contemporary look for Sally Bowles using pastels, metallics and varieties of textures.
Based on these ideas, I have created a few designs which are not final, but capture some of Sally's characteristics using contemporary aspects:
FIRST DESIGNS:
Make-up:
1.
For this look, I have used soft tones of orange, pinks and silvers. I feel that this look isn't very impacting and that more striking colours against a pale skin tone would work better for this look.
2.
For this look, I have used lots of pink tones with additions of gold. This has then been teamed with a slightly more impacting lip and strong brow. The eyebrows are drawn on dark and the eyeshadow is smudged down under her eyes to create the 'after night' effect.
3.
With this look, I have used more purple tones and teamed it with hints of gold. Again, there is a strong brow. I really like the turquoise element of the look here to contrast with the pinks. The purple tones toy with the thought of her feminine physique.
4.
The turquoise in this look contrasts well with the skin and can also be a reference to Sally's sometimes tomboy personality. The silver is also more complimentary with these colours and comes out stronger than the gold. I have also created a 'wobbly' drawn on eyebrow to emphasise the fact she has come from spending the night with a lover, etc.
Hair:
1.
This look shows the classic side parting and bob. With this bob I have heavily backcombed the hair and kept it straight to make it more contemporary, rather than it being sleek and waved. The hair is voluminous and structured. I think this style could be effective with colour and accessories added.
2.
This style is fairly similar to the above, but I have created more structure in three rows. This is to imitate the movement of fingerwaves. Again, it is heavily backcombed and structured to a bob style.
3.
With this hairstyle, I have created a centre parting, rather than a side parting. But I have kept the parting clean and sleek to keep the historical element. The hair is then backcombed and structured into two rounded shapes to imitate waves.
4.
This style has been slicked down in a classic side parting and secured. The rest of the hair is then heavily backcombed. I really like this style for sally as I feel the textures represent her contrasting sides of her personality; the very together happy Sally, and the sad, young and miserable Sally. The textured hair adds to the effect of how her hair is to be messed up from the night before.
Looking at Marilyn Minter:
American artist, Marilyn Minter's work displays elements of high fashion and glamour with aspects of pornography. Her work is shot with high definition lenses and then she would paint onto various materials.
Here are some images which I have found particularly inspirational:
Viewed 24.11.14 [online image] Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kraftgenie/5894134518/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Viewed 24.11.14 [online image] Available at: http://www.artnet.com/galleries/
Viewed 24.11.14 [online image] Available at: http://scriptical.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/scriptical-wordpress-the-art-of-beauty-frida-aasen-by-marilyn-minter-for-v-magazine-79-autumn-2012-4.jpg?w=700&h=942
Viewed 24.11.14 [online image] Available at: http://thelibertineezine.com/
I really love these images in the sense that that are sexually suggestive and focus on the lips, often associated with a subtle sexual feature of a female. The images look moist/wet, which again is very suggestive in itself. The water looks like sweat or condensation, creating a distorted image behind the glass. The diamonds and beading in the mouth are portrayed in a lustful way, being held in the mouth. The images are hot, sweaty and sexual. But they also display a distorted sense of wealth and glamour.
Green Pink Caviar (2009)
"The eight minute high-definition video, Green Pink Caviar (2009) is a lush and sensual voyeuristic hallucination. Filmed with macro lenses, she captures the most minute movements of female mouths licking candy and cake decoration. Driven by her facination with the body, Minter’s film sets the stage for chance to happen." - http://www.marilynminter.net/video/greenpinkcaviar/
This video is very provocative and suggestive with the movement of the tongue and lips. It is almost as if the person is passionately kissing the glass and the liquid substance.
Linking this to Sally's character:
Glitter/glam Vs. Dirt/Sex
The water distortion on the glass is similar to her misunderstanding of the differences between sex and love. I believe that Sally thinks sex is love, and she is confused with the differences.
The beading and crystals in the mouth portray a sexual image, and I believe that this could represent to luxuries she gains from men she sleeps with.
Some of the images appear sexual, but in a dirty way. This can symbolise her state of coming back from a lover after spending the night with them the next morning, still wearing her glitz and glamour from the night before, but topped up again the following morning, producing a sense of uncleanliness.
What I will take away from this research:
The use of diamonds and jewels - demonstrates her lustful personality, and the showering of gifts she receives from her lovers.
The effect of water - amps up the sex factor and also is a representation of Sally's distorted views on love.
The glitter/diamond detail - to produce an impression of her 'showgirl career'.
The Party Monster, based on the book Disco Bloodbath, is a film showing New York in the early 80s, graphically showing the realities of partying and drug use. We see the rise of Michael's party status as he is taught "the rules of fabulousness" by James St. James, "I don't do, I just am."
The film shows the wild parties thrown, with similar entrance rules as The Blitz Club, where image is everything. If you were ordinary, you were not welcome in the club, so weird was good, "no publicity is bad publicity". The outfits would be completely outrageous, colourful and androgynous. The Club Kids wore wild clothes and make-up showing no particular sexual preference and they were "famous because they're fabulous". But this idea of life is shown to be impractical as we see their partying antics and drug usage spiral out of control and they lived in a very deluded life were image and partying was everything.
Viewed 27.11.14 [online image] Available at: http://www.dcclubbing.com/style/edm-documentaries-worth-the-watch/
This is comparable to the film Cabaret in the sense of partying and wild and deluded lifestyles. But what differs are the motives. In The Party Monster, drugs are the motive, and in Cabaret, sex is the motive. Cabaret shows a lust for one another and the loosely sexual behaviour, rather than competition over image with one another and the routine drug use shown in The Part Monster. Yet, the unhealthy lifestyles are very similar in the sense that they don't live in a real world and their actions will soon take a bad turn.
Viewed 27.11.14 [online image] Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/penelope-andrew/tcm-fest-2012-cabarets-li_b_1419569.html
In comparison of character, I feel that Sally and Michael show similar traits. They are both naive, young and charming, yet they are selfish, foolish and don't understand the consequences of their actions. To Sally, everything is a show, and she is very self indulged and has little interest in others around her. The way she acts and likes to present herself is very much like Michael. They both dream of an increase of their social status, being famous and making it to the top. But their dreams are deluded and not realistic, which they will soon discover. They are also both very sexually mature for their ages and completely self obsessed, making them oblivious to the realities of their ambitions.
We see Michael's downfall with his reliance on drugs and doing anything he could to get them, including killing Angel. Similarly, Sally essentially 'kills' her baby when she has an abortion because she has been so obsessed and caught up in her daydream of a world that she doesn't understand the realities of her actions. And as Michael has the same views, he doesn't see any wrong in his murder and acts in a completely calm and passive manner.
The story line for these films both start with excitement and optimism and we are strung along in their worlds, but eventually we see the reality to their behaviour and everything begins to fall apart when excessive actions take place. As Sally always enjoys saying in Cabaret, "divine decadents", it is ironic that we see her favourite saying displayed in both films, showing the decline in moral values, and decline in general, as both their characters see their decline to be quite a fabulous one.
Using this information as a clear link to Cabaret, I feel it is important to understand a character's motives. My character being Sally, I will be focusing on her motives for sex, money and fame, but also being sure to portray the element of her behaviour spiralling out of control, potentially linking this to alcohol and drugs. With keeping her character contemporary, I will also use The Party Monster as a reference to how the party lifestyle and drug abuse can effect a character with their appearance and hunger for status.
For this task, I used the original image of my partner's design that I created and edited it with magazine cut outs and pens to create a contemporary look.
1.
For this look I have used a very contemporary styled and coloured hairstyle. The hair is very artificial and is long, differing from a naturally coloured 1920s bob. In addition to the hair, I have added flowers to create a 'festival hair' look. With the makeup, I have decided to use strong brows and a bold lip, which are both a very current trend.
2.
For this look I have added lots of additional features from multiple hair styles. I have used various braiding/mohawk techniques and sleek ponytails. Along with this, I have added brightly coloured, artificially textured flowers. The makeup for this look compliments the colour of the flowers. I created this by adding contemporary shapes and went over with pens and pencil.
3.
With this look, I have added a very large braid across the front hairline and added bright pink. I have also added more accessories and textures to create an interesting design. For the makeup, I have stuck with nude colours to keep the emphasis on the hair.
Feedback:
After presenting these ideas, the feedback I received was very helpful. I misunderstood the challenge a little and created a completely modern look, rather than creating a contemporary version of the original 1920s image. This completely defeated the point of having a 1920s template underneath the magazine cut-outs. This has made me realise that I really need to consider historical references when designing my contemporary character.
The Blitz Kids were a young group of people
in the late 1970s, early 80s, who attended a particular club night, Blitz, in
Covent Garden. These fashionable youths included the likes of Boy George and
Steve Strange. Their fashion and makeup/hair styling was completely over the
top and outrageous, but so very trendy and influential. Here began a "New
Romantic subcultural movement", changes in music, fashion and behaviour as
they entered into the 80s.
Crucially, the club was located between two
art colleges (St Martin's School and Central School) and became a testground
for student fashion designers who set London ablaze during the 1980s. Their
style would be very androgynous and sometimes gender wasn't apparent as The
Blitz club was a night where anything goes. The place was often hitting the
headlines with the outrageous costumes and makeup for both sexes. It was a
gathering place for people with confidence, and often talent as lots of pop
bands and successful musical celebrities were born here.
Viewed 27.11.14 [online image] Available at: http://fashiongrunge.com/2012/08/08/we-are-the-blitz-kids/
Viewed 27.11.14 [online image] Available at: http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/originals/0c/f8/35/0cf835f242e4edcfa34ebd7253e022b3.jpg
Viewed 27.11.14 [online image] Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2011/nov/13/the-ten-biggest-show-offs
This video discusses the fashion, party lifestyle and the backlashes of such an intense drug and sex element of partying. It makes you understand and realise that there are repercussions of their loose living party animal lifestyle. This can be compared to Goodbye To Berlin with Sally Bowels. Her party lifestyle and sleeping with multiple men led her to her pregnancy, which was a highly confusing and emotional time for her. She was lucky to not become very ill with diseases or drug abuse and addiction.
Recent/Today's Club Kids:
Viewed 27.11.14 [online image] Available at: http://www.celebritiestemple.com/celebrity/miley-cyrus-drunk
Viewed 27.11.14 [online image] Available at: http://www.buzzfeed.com/emilyhennen/miley-cyrus-shocks-us-once-again?sub=2648138_1747213
Viewed 27.11.14 [online image] Available at: http://radaronline.com/photos/nearly-unrecognizable-20-shocking-photos-of-stars-without-makeup/photo/528590/
Viewed 27.11.14 [online image] Available at: http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/00/2e/94/002e94030948b975b10cb27011c02e44.jpg
