Bibliography

References

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My Assessment

This is the design that Naomi chose to be my final assessment piece. I was very happy with her choice as there was nothing new that I need to learn, I just need to make sure I was able to achieve it the way she wanted and so that we were both happy with the final outcome.

We found it difficult to meet up any time other than a few hour before the actual assessment to practice, so I asked my flat mate ,who had similar length hair to Naomi's, if I could use her as a model in order to practice. This first practice actually went really well, so well in fact I forgot to take pictures of it due to excitement over my success. I think what was more important from the practice than pictures was the step by step guide I wrote for myself in order to get this design to look perfect on the day.

Step 1 - I brushed her hair through with a paddle brush in order to remove any knots and tangles and maintaining the comfort of the model.

Step 2 - I used a pintail comb to create a middle parting that went from her hair line all the way to the back of her neck. I then sectioned from behind her ear to the middle parting and separated the front and back sections, pinning the back section aside with a hair clip.

Step 3 - I then crimped the front section on both sides of the parting making sure that I left the few inches near the root of the section straight as Naomi wanted the hair to be sleek going into the bunches.

Step 4 - I clipped these crimped sections out of the way and got my model to lean forwards while I stood in front of her. This meant that I was able to plait the hair like a normal French braid but when she put her head up they would be climbing up her head.  The second braid was a little but trickier than the first as I had to ensure that I matched up the stitches in line with the first braid. I braided the hair right up to the ends on both sides and secured it with a Kirby grip.

Step 5 -  I then got her to sit back up straight in front of the mirror and I unclipped the crimped sections at the front of her hair and tied them together with the plait on either side so they were both in a ponytail on top of her head, evenly spaced and without any bumps.


Step 6 - I took the bobby pin from the end of each plait so the hair was loose and crimped it all.

Step 7 - I brushed the pony tails through and backcombed them to create volume and texture.

Step 8 - Using hair spray, hair gel and a pin tail comb I then created the curls with her baby hairs that I stuck down to her face. I finished the style off by spraying the hair on the scalp that was taken into the pony tail with hair spray to make it look a little bit wet like she specified on the chart.

Over all I think I did well and I hope Naomi was as happy with the outcome as I was. Everything went as I hoped it would and we even had a little time to spare in the end. If I were to do this style again I would use a grease based gel to slick the hair on the scalp into the ponytails in order to create the wet look that she wanted and for it to last last longer. I feel that if the shoot was for a longer period of time then the hair spray that I applied in order to make the hair look shiny would dry and look matte instead. I also would like to try adding hair pieces like extensions to the crimped sections of hair within the elastic bands as I feel that they could have had more body despite the amount I back-combed them, this is probably due to the length of the hair. Apart from these two minor changes I was content with the final style I created as well as being impressed with Naomi's design work. Personally, if I had too change anything about the design I think that I would try adding a french plait on the top of the head as well as up the back into the bunches. It would be interesting to see how the style looked if I were to use a different type of plait such as a dutch or fishtail. I really liked the way Naomi had used contrast in textures between the dry frizz of the ponytails compared to the sleek, wet look of the hair being pulled into the elastic. I would keep everything else about the design the same as I personally feel that she has incorporated both Elizabethan and high fashion elements within this design in a  clever and well thought out way.

Hair Charts - My Final Designs

This design was surprising inspired by elements of the high fashion Elizabethan design that I originally hated with a raging passion as well as the wedding/prom style design I did during the same task. I curled the hair the second time I tried the high fashion design because I didn't have crimping irons and found that I liked the look of curls framing the lower half of the face. I changed the parting from the middle to the side to give it more modern characteristics. I didn't like the way the plaits started from the parting on the original design but I did like the way they sat on the hair line so I kept the plaits but changed the way they were placed. In the wedding/prom design that I did on Olivia's hair during a practical session I created a braid that went from one ear to the other, similarly for this design, I had one braid behind the other coming from opposite sides of the head. For this same design I had curled all of Liv's hair in one direction and from the back it created one large sleek curl which I added to my hair chart because its a very contemporary element using an Elizabethan method of styling. I incorporated classic Elizabethan height and heart shape to the bouffants but I couldn't decide what texture I wanted to use so I decided to use a mix. The hair itself will all be sleek but with small sections of crimp and small plaits running through it.


I thought having created this hair chart that it would be my final design. I started testing it out on Mimi and changed my mind completely. I was doing exactly the same things that I always do during a practical. I wasn't creating a new style, I was just changing elements of the exact same thing over and over again. I wasn't going to settle on this as my final design as a result. Instead I came up with what is my actual final design below:

I was excited about this one. When designing this hair chart I was thinking about the opposite of what I normally do. I usually put plaits at the front of the head so instead I moved one to the back, this looked contemporary while using and Elizabethan technique. Normally I would create just a French plait, so I changed this to a loose, messy, fishtail braid instead. All of the hair is normal quite controlled and placed exactly where it needs to be but with a messy texture so instead I wanted the hair itself to be sleek and controlled and the style to be very loosely structured and almost windswept as this is more contemporary. I still wanted to incorporate the height and body of and Elizabethan design as otherwise the whole look would be too modern, I was very aware of keeping a balance between the two styles. I want the sides backcombed at the root so they have volume and come away from the head so the style looks quite wide. I also wanted the top section of the hair to be crimped to create contrast in texture and for it to be pulled back almost into a quiff, getting rid of the parting all together. This section would be back combed and rounded so that it mimicked the shape of the skull but a few inches above the scalp and an inch or so above the rest of the hair. Where this section is rolled and pinned to the head I want roses to be pinned along the seam so its hidden. I wanted the Elizabethan elements to be centred in one area that's why I placed the roses along the crimped section of the hair, separating the modern from the classic. I had thought about putting the Tudor roses into the seams of the plait but it would have covered a lot of the detail in the braid itself. Finally, I wanted a necklace draped over the crimped section of hair in the centre of the head. Elizabeth I often had jewellery in her hair styles and in the 21st century we are still doing the same thing as hair chains are a popular festival accessory currently. This is Naomi's interpretation of it:

High Fashion and Wedding Hair Task

These two lessons were quite different to most of the practical sessions we had been to before now. We were given a hand out that explained the task: we were to work with a partner and create either a contemporary/ editorial/ high fashion hair style or a wedding/ festival/ prom style using the Elizabethan techniques we had been taught. We would then be creating the style that we hadn't done this lesson in the following practical session. I decided to work with Olivia because I am familiar with her hair having styled it for her when doing a shoot so I was confident that I wouldn't run into any issues. Looking back now I probably should have stepped out of my comfort zone and worked with some who had a different hair type than I am used to, however my main concern at the time was being able to complete the task successfully.

I decided quite quickly that I wanted to do the wedding/prom hair first, it was more contemporary and even though I had recently completed some research in Elizabethan hair styles at that moment I fell back onto what was familiar to me.

Olivia's hair is naturally quite thin as well as being reasonably short, which means that it is likely to hold shape well as there isn't a lot of weight to it. She also has some really nice tones within her hair, some honey and platinum blondes along side some more ashy browns and some rather dark brunettes too. Having made these observations I concluded that plaiting her hair would look quite effective as all the tones would weave in and out of one another creating contrast in the stitches. As well as this I knew that her hair wold hold a curl well without prepping due to the length and weight of it.


I curled her hair using the straighteners because I wanted to create a softer more modern curl to the curls that I would create if I was styling an Elizabethan design. I curled it all one way so that it would look smoother instead of looking more like a beach wave. I was happy with the way this turned out, it was soft and sleek and looked effortless. Her hair naturally parts in the middle and she has short bangs, so I left these loose to frame her face and then created a French plait from the right side of her head over to the left and then pinned it underneath the loose hair that I had curled and left loose. I pulled the stitches to create a low tension, soft almost messy style that is in fashion currently.

 

Although I was happy with the way this turned out I wasn't impressed with my design itself. I think I made things too easy for myself, as I knew that I would be able to carry this out without pushing myself. I was worried about creating something that I didn't like and as a result I didn't create anything particularly 'wow'.  It was soft and flattering as I didn't want to create a style where there was too much going on, but it almost seems too simple and basic as I know I am capable of more.


 Because I hadn't been all together pleased with the final out come of the first part of the task, I thought I'd try and incorporate more techniques into my design this time to try and make it more intricate and interesting. I usually plan everything perfectly when it comes to a design and they way I'm going to approach it, however I just wasn't inspired for this one. I tried to come up with something different and something extravagant and everything that I thought of I had either seen somewhere else or someone else do. I think I had put so much pressure on myself to perform better than the last time that I wasn't excited about this task anymore. I thought about the design that I had created in Helens session a few weeks beforehand where I had just thought on my feet and surprised myself, therefore I decided to wing it. This wasn't the wisest decision I've ever made because I completely hated the outcome. It was a bad design to begin with but not only that; because I had planned what I was going to do next as I was working, I had missed out numerous steps that I should have taken when creating each section. I'll explain what went wrong from the mess at the front working all the way to the disaster in the back.

The sections that I took at the sides to use for rick-racking were far too small and wispy, they didn't create a clean shape and also made my model look a little bit like she had some balding patches around her hairline. The sections that I created for the French plaits along the hair line were also too small. The plaits looked messy and again made the hair look thinner that it actually was. The bouffaunts behind it had no volume because I pinned them down instead of rolling the section underneath so all of my backcomb was flattened down and the grips were completely on display. I think at this point I had just given up completely and decided to pin up the rest of the hair in the quickest way possible. Even that went wrong. I wrapped the hair so it sat behind itself making the bun sag downwards despite the amount of tension in the twist. I should have wrapped it so that it sat against the head and pinned it instead.

In hindsight, I probably should have just tried to plan my design for a little bit longer or come back to planning at a different time. Winging it doesn't always work and this being a prime example of that. In an attempt to gain some confidence in my own ability back, I went home and recreated this poorly thought out design on Mimi. I don't have crimping irons at home so I instead curled her hair tightly using straightening irons and brushed it out to create a frizzy texture similar to the crimp.

This time I created larger sections for both the rick-rack and the French plaits. I rolled the hair under to create height at the back and pinned the bun against the head properly to avoid all of the issue with my first attempt from being repeated. Due to the fact that I had to curl the hair instead of crimping it I was left with a curl where the rick rack was and I liked the way it looked so I photographed one side with the rick-rack and the other with a curl. So despite the actual design itself being bad, the techniques were all carried out to my best ability.

 These two sessions definitely taught me that I should plan ahead no matter how unmotivated I am, as coming up with a whole design while working on the hair is not big nor is it clever.

Hair Charts - My First Designs

Using my research, the inspiration that I gathered from images as well as the techniques I tried out, I started planning my designs. The first design that I put on paper was the bouffant heart design that I created in a practical lesson. The whole head of hair is crimped and brushed through with a small amount of back comb against the scalp on the underneath layers. No props are used, when the hair is sectioned properly a few pins will create a dip resulting  in the heart shape in the hair. I think this design is simple but effective. It incorporates the texture of an Elizabethan hair style but without the same amount of control, giving it a contemporary edge. The hearts are placed at the front of the head along the hair line, sat upon a middle parting, where this shape would have been worn during the 1500's. This shape would have been created using a rounded out bouffant on either side of the part, instead I have placed a heart either side of the part to make the shape more prominent and the style more modernised.      

The style on the left was inspired by the Tudor rose bun that I styled on my flat mates hair, this same bun is on the nape of the neck and to the left side in my design. I also incorporated these buns along the hair line. This brings attention to the front sections of the hair like most styles worn in Elizabethan times, however the texture of the hair is sleek and soft making it more up to date, something that would likely be worn to a wedding or prom. Out of the two, this design has more of a  21st century approach as the flowers are similar those that would be worn to a festival and it has more contemporary elements in texture and volume of the hair.    

Tudor Rose Bun

One of the gilrs that I live with has really long and lovely hair that I'm forever wanting to play with. She often lets me style her hair before a night out and I'm always saying that I would love to try one of my designs on her hair. I haven't actually put any designs on paper yet, however I have a mental list of things that I have been planning on attempting. Mimi's hair isn't very exciting to work with, its very thin, short and looks damaged, not to mention she is a very boring client, the converstaion is almost completely one sided. So I decided to try something different on my flat mates hair.

My inspiration for this desgin came from the Tudor rose. I really liked the idea of putting roses into hair but then I thought about maybe creating something that looked like a rose with the hair itself. Obviously I didnt really know where to begin so I started off by deciding wheether to create one rose or a few small ones. Considering the amount of hair that I was working with I thought maybe I should do numerous smaller ones but then changed my mind; thinking I should try conquering the task of creating just one to begin with.  I started by creating a twisted bun and trying to pull small sections of hair out of it in loops so that they looked like petals. As you can imagine the whole bun just fell pretty much completely apart. I thought about what I could do to the hair in order to create loops. When I used to work as a hairdressers assistant I often was given the oportunity to style little girls hair and the biggest request was 'princess' hair.  I did a lot of 'Elsa' plaits, curling, buns etc which is why I've been so confident during the practical lessons. One of the styles that I enjoyed creating was hair bows, it involved threading hair through the stitches of a plait and pulling it only partically through so that it looked like the ears of a bow.

 Above are hair bows that I created on my little sisters hair for my portfolio. The loops for this style dont look particularly like petals, also I feel that they would look messy when grouped closer together when trying to style them into a rose shape. However, this wasnt a completely useless thought as it reminded me of how loose some of the plait stitches could become when pulling the hair through the braid. I created a very loose plait on my models hair and decided that these stitches would be my petals. I placed the plait on the nape of the neck and wrapped it almost into a bun and it looked kind of like a flower, however it wasnt quite right. I played around with this idea and came to the comclusion that only one side of the braid needed to have loose stitches, so I created a plait with an average amount of tension and then pulled out the stitches on just the right side before securing it with a elastic hair band. Just like I had done before I wrapped the plait around and pinned it numerous times into position. I pulled it tighter in on itself, I pinned it in differnt places but it still didn't look the way I wanted it to. I pulled the singular braid out and created two plaits instead, each with a loose side of stitches. I wrapped one around the other and I was happy to say that it actually looked like a flower. It may not have looked like a rose specifically, however it did look like one to a certain extent, so I was rather pleased with myself.

I would definitely like to see what styles I could create using this technique. I'm sure I'll plan a design with these hair roses as an element at some point, as I think smaller ones would look impressive, as well as being elizabethan and contempoary in style.

Practical - Frizzing and Embellishments

We began this practical by learning a texturing technique called frizzing. This was the first technique that we had been taught so far that I wasn't already familiar with, so I was quite excited to see what it was and whether I could actually achieve it. It is quite fiddly and it's not something that I can do very quickly, but I still found that I was able to create a clean looking result using the tools I was provided with.

The utensils that I used to create frizzed hair were:

• A paddle brush
• A pintail comb
• Hair pins
• Straightening irons
• Kirby grips 
• Hair clips  

Step 1 - I started by brushing the whole head of hair through with the paddle brush in order to remove any knots or tangles that would make it difficult to section the hair.

Step 2 - I created a small square shaped section about 2 inches tall and wide and pinned the rest of the hair back using a hair clip or two.

Step 3 - I then took a hair pin and stretched it open into a V shape and pulled the strand of hair that I had just sectioned off through the widened pin.

Step 4 - This is where it gets fiddly. Taking the strand in one hand and the widened pin in the other, weave the hair over and under the pin, alternating sides. Keep weaving until there isn't any hair left that isn't wrapped around the pin.

Step 5 - Take a Kirby grip and secure the ends of the hair to the pin. Then using your straightening irons, clamp them over the top of the hair wrapped around the pin.

Step 6 - Leave the hair to cool to make sure that the shape of the hair is fixed and then remove the Kirby grip and the pin from the hair and you should have a wavy/ zigzagged strand like the one below.

I enjoyed this technique because it was more challenging than most of the others we have done as well as being something that I have never tried before. However, I couldn't help but think that there must be a different tool that I could use which would be easier to weave the hair around. During my first few attempts I had to restart weaving the section completely as the hair would slip out of the bottom of the pin when it bent inwards from the tension in the hair at the top.  I thought a tuning fork could work as the bars are stiffer and won't close in.

This practical lesson also tested how much research we had done so far into contemporary Elizabethan hair styles. We were asked to create a style that used the techniques we had been taught so far as well as the knowledge we had gained through our research. I managed to create two different styles during this session, which surprised me because it usually takes me forever to create something that I am actually willing to show anyone. I felt confident that I could produce something of a reasonable standard and I think that's why I worked so quickly as I was motivated.

The first style that I created was very simple and would probably have looked better as an element of a design where there was a lot more going on, more texture or height or maybe some props.

So from there it was quite clear that I needed to add something to it but I wasn't quite sure what. I knew I didn't want to change the texture as I wanted to see if I could create an Elizabethan look without the hair being crimped as this seemed far too obvious to me. I was considering curling the ends of the hair but decided it looked very bridal and that wasn't what I was trying to achieve. At the beginning off the session Helen had left some props on the side for us to try putting into the hair and I thought about the pearls that Elizabeth would often wear in her hair. This thought decided for me that I was going to try and incorporate a prop. I'm not used to working with props so I didn't really know what to pick up, therefore I just grabbed the first thing that caught my eye which was the end of a green ribbon and both the ribbon and a gold chain came out from underneath everything. The ribbon was green, which in the Elizabethan ear was considered a royal colour, which was perfect. The gold chain represented wealth to me so I thought I'd try playing around with it as well. I was tempted a while ago to buy a head chain as they were very popular in festival fashion so this is the first direction that I took the chain. I found out very quickly that it didn't look at all Elizabethan so had to be more creative than that. I tried draping it over the plait in various different ways, and finally decided after pinning it along the plait itself that I didn't like the way it looked and moved onto the ribbon.

 I wanted the ribbon to look less like the chain did, so I didn't want to just place it onto the hair. It looked too much like an after thought, which in all fairness; it was, however it didn't need to look that way. My first thought was to stitch it into the braid which I enjoyed doing, the final outcome looked like it had been difficult to achieve when it wasn't at all which I was impressed with. It enhanced the style I had already created instead of being separate to it, it looked like I had planned it into the original design and I was pleased with it. Despite this, it still seemed very dull from the back. I wanted it to look good from all angles, as any style should.

I thought about bringing the two plaits into one braid at the nape of the neck but I had already used this technique and I also dont like the aesthetic of a braid stright down the back of  the neck. I thought that a bun would be neat way of bringing the hair together at the back of the head and draw attention to the front section like it would have been in the Tudors as a hair piece usually would have been worn. I only wanted it to be small so I just twisted the rest of the hair up and arond itself and secured it with as Kirby grip. I was happy with the way it looked, however it wasn't Elizabethan enough, instead it looked very bridal, too modern and contemporary.

Instead of playing around with the same design, I decided that I wanted to start over. Although I had thought crimping was too obvious a texture to give a contemporary Elizabethan hair design, I actually started by crimping the whole head of hair for my next design. I thought that maybe I was using too many contemporary elements in my desgins so it didnt come across Elizabethan. I still wanted to work with the heart shaped idea but I didnt like the way plaits looked when worked into crimped hair, they look messy to me as you cant see the details of them. I could have kept certain sections straight in order to plait them but I thought instead I could practice an alternative technique that we'd been taught as I'm quite confident working with braids.

 I didnt know how well this design was going to go as I wasnt sure I'd be able to manipulate the hair into an obvious heart shape without a rat or prop but I was very pleased with the outcome. I used kirby grips and pins to create this style, although the back of the hair didnt look very clean, if I were to do this again then I would place pins and grips in a more descrete manner. I wasnt thinking about the way the back looked as I didnt quite know if my idea was going to be a success from any angle at all. Its clear what I was trying to achieve here, it had height and a clean shape and overall I think the bouffants and the use of texture alone make the style, so I left the rest of the hair loose.

This practical session made me realise that I was more capable in terms of skill than I gave myself credit for, giving me confidence. It also instilled that planning ahead is important when creating, as my first design wasnt succesful when I was designing as I worked.