Context:
For the final part of my Final Major Project, we are creating High Fashion looks based on the many works of Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli for the chance to have our work featured in the end of year exhibition. Our look must include hair, makeup, a full outfit and a head dress. Our work must be original, well thought out and linked to aspects of Schiaparelli’s work. I plan on making a look that portrays Schiaparelli’s eccentric work and includes aspects from her designs (colours, shapes etc.)
I changed my original idea that I created for my pitch proposal to something more eccentric and interesting:
The practical assessment for this will take place on April 30th.
Research:
Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973) was an Italian fashion designer who throughout her career, was one of the biggest figures in creating modern fashion. Her career progressed rapidly- largely through her collaborations with artists like Cocteau and Manray:
The “Evening Coat” was designed by Schiaparelli and Cocteau in 1937 for her Autumn 1937 collection. It is still known as one of Schiaparelli’s most interesting and eccentric designs. I like this design because I think the roses add a nice touch and really pop.
Another collaboration that Schiaparelli was involved in that I like is this collaboration with Manray from 1936. It carries the monochrome aspect that is still seen in Schiaparelli designs today. I especially like the mesh sleeves and ribbon across the top of the dress because it makes the entire look more unique and sophisticated. I might incorporate this aspect of black and white into my final look, but I will include inspiration from modern designs as well.
Looking at more modern Schiaparelli designs, this piece from her Fall 2018 collection caught my eye because of the bright colours and butterfly mask:
As I need to create a head dress for this part of my final project, I could incorporate butterflies as well as the 10 pink roses from the 1937 “Evening Coat”. I could also add black and white roses or other flowers to keep with Schiaparelli’s original monochromatic floral fashion designs.
Problem Solving:
A problem I ran into during this part of my final major project was the short amount of time to prepare. I was originally going to create a unique dress of my own but I couldn’t because I did not have enough time to make it after completing my other two looks. I worked around this and luckily found a dress in the college’s wardrobe that fit my theme and also fit my model.
Another problem was making the head dress. Originally I was going to wrap and sew glittery mesh fabric around some thing wire so that the base of my head dress was still manoeuvrable. However the wire was far too flimsy and wouldn’t work. I also couldn’t find my mesh fabric. My solution to this was to glue some pink scrap fabric I had to a piece if cardboard in the shape of a butterfly and glue it to the headband in a way that would still allow movement.
Planning & Production:
The first thing I did when preparing for my fashion assessment was design and create the head dress for my look. I have changed the list of things I needed for my head dress since creating this design because using clay for the butterfly would most likely make the head dress difficult to bend. I changed the material for the butterfly when creating my steps on how to complete my head dress:
To do this, I would have bought a headband, pink wire, fake flowers and I already had some pink fabric. I would have first used pliers to bend the wire into the shape of butterfly wings and hand sew the fabric around the wire. Then I would have bent some more wire to make antenna, once this is done I would have used a small amount of hot glue to attach them to the head band. Then I would have added the same 10 flowers as the Evening Coat to the head band to finish the head dress.
I found out that the wire would be too flimsy to create such a big shape, for this reason I had to glue the fabric to some cardboard and follow the rest of my steps:
I also wanted to make a dress since we need to create outfits for this part of our final major project:
I would have needed lots of pink fabric, elastic, gold beads and the same/ similar flowers to the head dress; this was to keep the link to Schiaparelli’s floral and butterfly designs whilst also making my work unique.
However, by the time I had designed the dress I learnt that the assessment was the Tuesday after. Since this only left me with one lesson to create the entire dress after I was able to get the materials I decided to look in the wardrobe in the studio to choose what I would use in my final look.
Before my assessment I was also struggling to chose my look, my original mood board was made a few weeks ago and since then I have adapted my ideas a lot. For this reason I felt very overwhelmed, but I decided to make face charts of all my ideas. The first two were adaptations of my original butterfly idea featured on my first mood board, I changed my original idea because I thought that the pink butterfly makeup would end up being too much alongside the pink butterfly headdress that I designed and pick outfit. Both looks would have a base of foundation, concealer and contour, set with translucent powder and with a pink hued blush. The liner would be done with face paint and I would use the face paint as pink mascara. I would also use a pink lip gloss similar in colour to the face paint.
My third idea was more of an editorial look inspired my the makeup in the music video for the song “Primadonna Girl” by Marina And The Diamonds
I thought that the big false eyelashes could easily represent the butterfly wings because the lashes are big, bold and thick. I also thought that the editorial aspect of the makeup could balance out the bright colours and still keep Schiaparelli’s unique, unusual and appealing designs. I wouldn’t add the heart on my model’s cheek though my inspiration would only be from the eye makeup. The makeup would also be a standard base with the pink lip gloss, a brown smokey eye with black eyeliner, mascara and lashes. Then I would add the big false lashes to the lower lashes.
I had the chance to talk to one of the tutors from the higher levels about which design she thought would be best for me to do for my Schiaparelli assessment. She said that my graphic liner look wouldn’t be best in case my models’ eyes are hooded, but she really liked my other two looks. I was told that for an editorial look I should use a lot of moisturiser and focus a lot on the skin (Egyptian Balm was one of the products the tutor recommended). I was told that the swirly liner was the best idea because it represented Schiaparelli’s focus on shape and form, for this reason I chose to do my swirly liner look.
| Skin Care | Laroche-Posay | |
| Foundation | M.U.D | |
| Concealer | M.U.D | |
| Contour | M.U.D | |
| Setting Powder | M.U.D | |
| Powder Blush | M.U.D | |
| Powder Contour | Pixi | |
| Pink Face Paint | Snazaroo | |
| Pink Lip Gloss “Chocolate Marshmallow” | Revolution | £4 |
| Outfit/ Head Dress | £4 | |
| Hairspray | Vo5 |
After deciding which look to create, I made a new mood board of my references and face chart. My main inspirations are big swirls and clumpy mascara- which was a technique recommended to me by the tutor I spoke to.
Problem Solving:
One problem I ran into was that the wire I was going to use for my head dress was far too flimsy so I had to use card board to complete my head dress.
Another problem I ran into during my assessment was that I smudged the face paint and some of the lines were asymmetrical. To fix this, I removed the mistakes with miscellar water and went back over the skin with foundation and face paint.
Practical Skills:
First I clipped my models hair back and applied skin care. (Cleanser, Toner and Moisturiser)
Then, I applied a base of foundation, concealer and contour using the palette from my M.U.D kit. I had to colour match two different shades to match my models skin and it matched perfectly.
I set the face with translucent powder from my M.U.D kit before adding pink blush (also from my M.U.D kit) and more contour using the Pixi palette.
After completing the base, I used a thin makeup brush to line the eyelids with pink face paint and then add the swirls to the face. I then got some pink face paint on a flat brush and used it as mascara on the upper and lower lashes.
Then I used a pair of tweezers to clump the lashes and added pink lip gloss to finish the look.
For the hair, I slicked down the top of the hair and kept it in place with clips until it was time to take photos.
Presentation:
Evaluation:
The feedback I received from my tutor was that the look was nice, but I needed to fix the creased concealer that I forgot to set after fixing the smudged eyeliner and that was on the eyelid.
Reflection:
I think my look went really well, I would have liked a little more feedback from my tutor but my classmates and another model said that my makeup look was really good.