Research + Visual Inspiration + Designs

The Club Kids brought back surrealism and made it a real life piece of Art, to express yourself in any way you like. They turned their lives into a masterpiece of creativity, but with the addiction to glamour and fashion came other addictions, ones with detrimental effects and consequences. I want to incorporate an element of surrealism into my design and execute my image in a way that you can tell I have been inspired by it.

Here are a few examples of surrealism in photography -

I began looking at Man Ray, the images below were so influential on the Surrealist Art Movement and I feel really inspired by them;

I adore the floating head in this, and the floating hands, may be something worth thinking about when it comes to shooting the images? Or possibly in post production. 

I have been really inspired by the idea of a floating head? I love this image named Floating Head, portrait of Mary Taylor. New York City 1933 by Lee Miller 

Here is a mood board of makeup ideas I like for my contemporary Sally Bowels. Pat McGrath has been my main focus when coming up these designs. I want something strong, but simple for the face, and an over exaggerated 20s style brow. I love uneven, care free eye makeup and would like to replicate this in someway; 

These are some initial face charts, I found using water colours was an easy way for me to create shapes and add colours to get an idea of what route I wanted to take my design. The over the top 2 at the top, were inspired by Leigh Bowery, and although I think this created onto the skin would work well, I think the bottom idea is more appropriate for the look I am wanting to create. 

Hair Charts - 

This is the design I have chosen to go for is this one. Its a futuristic take on the 1920's bob, with a wave like shape at the back and a neon pink running through. I have used grips on top to add another 20s feel to the look. 

My lovely model Molly-Mae

I began prepping the hair by twisting it around pins and sealing with straighteners

I did this to the whole head, but leaving the roots flat, to help manipulate the shape I want to create.

Now on to creating the 20s tucked under bob. I flattened the hair down on top with gel and then pinned under just like we were shown the traditional way. I began to add the clips to the hair, leaving the front section loose. I then added clips up both sides of the front part and then back combed the remaining hair. 

Now the fun begins! Once I got the general shape, I added some colour. I got pink hair spray and spray sporadically all over, focusing on the roots and parts at the back,

I then started to manipulate the shape to make it more contemporary, I used my pin tail comb to create the shape of a wave and secured more with pins and hair spray.

I added gold to the roots, because I thought the pink was a little too harsh.

I pinned the fringe up and under, and used my pintail comb to create the shape.

With the makeup, I started by blocking the brows and with the eye makeup, I wanted it to look oily and left on, uneven on either side and subtle in comparison to the hair, but strong in its own right.

I got my model to wear a black turtle neck top, and I have the idea of using a black background to create the illusion of a floating head. 

Here is one of my final images! - It worked. I am happy with the surrealist effect the floating head has created, it's quite futuristic. 

futuristic - club kid - 5th element









Contempary Sally -

The lyrics to this song, perfectly sum up my contemporary Sally Bowels

I was in the winter of my life, and the men I met along the road were my only summer.
At night I fell asleep with visions of myself, dancing and laughing and crying with them.
Three years down the line of being on an endless world tour, and my memories of them were the only things that sustained me, and my only real happy times.
I was a singer - not a very popular one,
I once had dreams of becoming a beautiful poet, but upon an unfortunate series of events saw those dreams dashed and divided like a million stars in the night sky that I wished on over and over again, sparkling and broken.
But I didn't really mind because I knew that it takes getting everything you ever wanted, and then losing it to know what true freedom is.
When the people I used to know found out what I had been doing, how I'd been living, they asked me why - but there's no use in talking to people who have home.
They have no idea what it's like to seek safety in other people - for home to be wherever you lay your head.
I was always an unusual girl.
My mother told me I had a chameleon soul, no moral compass pointing due north, no fixed personality; just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and as wavering as the ocean...
And if I said I didn't plan for it to turn out this way I'd be lying...
Because I was born to be the other woman.
Who belonged to no one, who belonged to everyone.
Who had nothing, who wanted everything, with a fire for every experience and an obsession for freedom that terrified me to the point that I couldn't even talk about it, and pushed me to a nomadic point of madness that both dazzled and dizzied me.




Every night I used to pray that I'd find my people, and finally I did on the open road.
We had nothing to lose, nothing to gain, nothing we desired anymore, except to make our lives into a work of art.
Live fast. Die young. Be wild. And have fun.
I believe in the country America used to be.
I believe in the person I want to become.
I believe in the freedom of the open road.
And my motto is the same as ever:
"I believe in the kindness of strangers. And when I'm at war with myself I ride, I just ride."
Who are you?
Are you in touch with all of your darkest fantasies?
Have you created a life for yourself where you can experience them?
I have. I am fucking crazy.
But I am free.

These lyrics, evoke an emotion that I can only image is what Sally is constantly feeling, a sense of being lost, yet being found all rolled into one. My contemporary character I want to be heavily based on the Club Kids attitude, of being a misfit and society looking upon them as the 'lost generation' - when really, the freedom of expression and creativity that they're experiencing is irreplaceable and real. 

These lyrics have always resinated deeply with me, as it's not often I hear poetry, and I think the lyrics are so honest and pure.