Goldwell goes Viral!

The Goldwell Video "Fashion of Colour" has now gone viral on YouTube. My team's video is "Gender Liberation". The results are fantastic  - especially the visual representation of gender entanglement using the models hair.

Final Tutorial for FMP

Today I had my final tutorial with Emmanuelle prior to the hand in of my dissertation on the dreaded Friday 13th :S

Luckily I feel that I have managed my time well and although I still have some editing in places and some areas of each case study to finish, I feel confident that this can all be done in time!

A few aims for my dissertation now are to cut out the emotive chatty language i.e the opposite of here :)... I am also going to research The Messel dress collection in detail as Emmanuelle thinks this would be a great exhibition to include in Case study Two with regards to clothing that is passed down within families. The women of the Messel family kept their dresses beautifully preserved and there are examples from six generations within the family. One that I am analysing in further detail is the wedding dress (above) that was worn by Anne Messel in 1925, yet remains in perfect condition today - apart from a lipstick stain which luckily for the benefit of my dissertation tells a great narrative!

Threads of Feeling -

Today I visited the Foundling Museum near Russel Square in order to research a potential case study for my dissertation. It is a museum that exhibits the history of the Foundling Hospital and the tragic stories of pverty stricken parents who had to give up their babies in the 17th century. Being someone who considers themself somewhat of an 'emotional retard' and often, i've been told, not being able to see the serious side of things, I consider today a new day. It is impossible to think of words that could have so clearly and visually described the love between a mother and child as this exhibition. That love not during their childhood, but at the point that mothers had to make the painstaking decision to give up their tiny babies. Before I even entered the museum I had seen images and read text of the heart renching stories of the foundling babies. Even I felt myself well up at the thought of how they coped with this separation, given that once left the infant mortality rate was as high as knowing that two thirds of the babies would die.

Having discussed possible options with Emmanuelle it was suggested that the story of The Foundling  Babies may be very fitting to my subject. To re-cap I am discussing the links between clothing and relationships in families. I am focusing on anthropological theories of the gift, and what makes heirlooms and items of clothing more than just a piece of cloth to an individual. The Foundling Story is a heartfelt and moving one. I gained a great insight into the tragedy that many families faced in the 17th Century when poverty forced them to give up their children. The only 'token' left with the anonymous child that linked them back to their parents was often a piece of fabric or an item of clothing. The foundling museum has hosted a temporary exhibition displaying many of the tokens since October, and luckily I got to see this collection just three days before it closed! See the website here for more information.

Two examples of the fabric tokens, notice the embroidered flower indicating the chance of a new life, and the hearts showing the universal symbol of love. Mothers would clearly try to make their fabric as identifiable as possible, in the small hope that one day, if they were in a position to re-claim their child, that they would know which one belonged to them.

Getting published!

After a very successful presentation at the Goldwell HQ in Green Park, the editor of Creative Head magazine said she would like to publish all the work in an upcoming issue of the magazine. This is course is great news for everyone involved as it means all the hard work will now be published and out there to see!

It was not just the images but also the short films we made that were shown at the Goldwell presentation. I was not too impressed as I had been chosen, (by mass majority, mob mentality and peer pressure infront of tutors!)  to speak on the film. No one likes to see themselves on camera, especially not me. Ground swallow me up, and although I know the clip is a viral, theres a part of me that would just like the images (and not the film) to be seen by greater numbers! Afterall, I chose to work behind the camera in this industry and definately not infront of it!

Style Hunt and Blagging a show

Style Hunt

Today we took a little break from our studies to take on a one-day job for the company 'Unilever'. We carried out a 'Style Hunt' around london, taking groups of Unilever Employees to different venues that we considered inspiring to our own style. I took our group to Lily Allens Fashion boutique in Covent Garden and also to Liberty's off Carnaby Street. In discussing what had inspired us for our latest project, I actually found it helped me to discover new ways to look for inspiration, especially when talking to the other students about how their ways varied. 

After the Style hunt a few of us went for a meal and it was outside the restaurant that another student Elliot Dollie, and I, were approached by a couple of very dressed up girls. They offered us two tickets to the British Fashion Awards that night, for free, as they had made the mistake of ordering twice as many as they needed! Never one to miss out on a freebie, Elliot and I continued our fashion-filled day by going to watch the awards show, hosted by Claudia Winkleman and attended by top fashion faces such as Naomi Cambell, Claudia Schiffer, and top actress of mine, Thandie Newton. 

Among the many awards the winners included: The late Alexander McQueen who was awarded an outstanding achievement award in fashion:

 Alexa Chung who won the acolade for Best British Style

 and Pheobe Philo for Celine who won Best Designer of the Year.

We also got goodie bags included with our (freee) ticket, and Elliot was kind enough to pass on his free Mac lipgloss to me :)

Goldwell Shoot Day

We have now completed the photoshoot for Goldwell. It's been a brilliant team effort where all members of the group have used their individual strengths in either photography, styling, hair and makeup, or general production. I particularly enjoyed shooting the video today - we had to produce a minute long film clip that portrayed our idea of 'Gender Entanglement'. We did this visually by twisting the models hair together, and then having them slowly move apart.... in the editing stages this will also be reversed so it looks as though the two models are morphing into one another. Unfortunately due to copyright issues, I cannot post any images yet!

Desire Presentation

Today I completed my powerpoint presentation for Desire. Having completed the shoot and the journal alongside the images, I realised there was so much more to this topic to be uncovered - with regards to mother and daughter style influences and the meaning of gifted clothing. For this reason, I anticipate that I may continue this topic into my final major project.

Goldwell Campaign --- Hair Research

The Goldwell campaign is moving along swiftly and the team has come together well, each with our own individual tasks to complete. I am concentrating on finalising the ideas for the Hair of both the male and female model. Below I've detailed the reasons for these ideas.

With regards to the hair, we wanted this to be more than just a reaction to spring summer 2011, and a continuation of the idea that our characters, swap and change their styles. Our characters are known to blend there genders with all aspects of their styling and their hair is no exception.

2011 runways saw a continuation of androgyny. And the female models hair was often fashioned into masculine looks

We decided that ‘women who portray masculinity’ has already been showcased in a multitude of ways. We wanted to try it the other way, for the male. But the look is less about ‘gender bending’ and more about a man who is comfortable in his own skin and sexuality, who both inspires and takes inspiration from, his partner. They are a couple who’s relationship, interests and careers co-exist side by side, as opposed to the typical masculine/feminine roles.

We are therefore focusing on hair trends for the male that cross over both genders. The male character, will take the sleeker route, often typically adorned by the female. His hair will be poker straight, high gloss locks. The high gloss effect was achieved with Goldwell’s Brilliance Shine Spray products and Firm Hold hair spray. The woman's is influenced by the current trend of the 70's blowdry.

Deadline Day for Research Planning!

True to form I was scrabbling about and making last minute changes up until hand in :)

I honestly believe that even if I had a year to write this document that I would still have been changing bits here and there right up to the end. I think that's the nature of this essay. It's 'ideas', a collection of theories and studies that you may, or may not undertake. It's been the general assumption that all the ideas we have put into this 2500 word document will have to be scaled down immensely, as often our plans are far too big for our word limits. Some of the topics I want to cover would require more of a phd time limit and word count, so I am prepared to reduce the aims and questions greatly come new year when we are introduced to our dissertation tutor. 

The Pink Group Present our images for the Goldwell Campaign!

Today my group, the 'pink' (groan) group presented our campaign for Goldwell to a panel of our tutors. We used a PowerPoint presentation and the eight of us all had to say our bit about how we contributed to the final images. The images were well received, especially the use of visual metaphors as noted by Fiona. The tutors have also given us some useful feedback though as to how we could perfect the images before the presentation at Goldwell HQ - i.e slight changes using post-production to the scale of the images so that they matched, and also the gradient of the colour needs a tweaking.

Unfortunately I cant include any of the images as the copyright belongs to Goldwell for both the images and short film, it is up to them as and when they will promote the images!

Desire Photoshoot (Specialism Studies) -IN MY MOTHER'S SHOES

Today I did the photoshoot for 'desire' at the London College of Fashion photographic studios. I used an in-house photographer and the great models for the day were Lydia Hourihan and Cristina Masso. We shot them both individually and as a pair, in two outfit changes each and using various 'hand me down' props to strengthen the theme of 'In my Mothers Shoes'

Here is a very small selection of the 126 photos taken in a quick hour long shoot!

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The influential Emma Jonsson Dysel

As part of the 'Desire' project I have been influenced by the Work of Emma Jonsson Dysel. Her use of child models in her images is beautifully done and – what is often more difficult – tastefully done and appropriate. In in fashion there seems to be a fine line between that and the vulgar use of children, which she has, in my opinion, avoided.

B.A Workshop Post Production 12th October 2010

Today we had a workshop with Susanna and Jake. It was mainly to show the benefits of retouching, it was a long but productive day where I learnt how to make further additions to pictures and blend the colours so that these additions look natural. The more I learn about post-production techniques, the more I don't mind looking at the near perfect images in fashion magazines. Over the last few years I have seen the Before and After so many times that I know all is not as it appears. I was, true to form, a little distracted by the fact that the model looked like Katie Waisel from the X factor and Jake the photographer/retoucher looked a bit like Leonardo Di Caprio, now that he has some hair anyway. Pretty sure when he taught us Photoshop in year one, he was bald.

Goldwell Project - Pink Group

We have decided our groups for the Goldwell industrial project and have been given the group name PINK - Not a chosen name but the whole year group are divided into colours. Our group should work well together as we all have different strengths that will hopefully produce a creative set of images.

Team Pink: 

Me! Julie Kerr:  Hair and Makeup with a great interest also in special effects.

Sophie Surridge: Styling and Photography - focusing more on styling

Elliot Dollie:  Styling and Photography- focusing more on Photography

Tereza Bila: Makeup and Hair, a highly creative member

SuJin Jung: With a great flare for amazing results with hair 

Sky Anderson: Makeup and Hair with a strong art background and love for colour

Kirsty Coleman: TV and Special Effects: A creative member who reproduced an Avatar makeup for her  final project last year 

Fran Boyd: Styling and Photography - Focusing more on styling for this project


We had a group meeting before class yesterday and all showed each other Power Points and images of our initial ideas. A lot of our ideas seemed to blend well together, main influences coming through were strong colours to represent a strong woman, such as red and white and black to contrast. The 1970's were also very influential.




We looked at images of half images/half sketch. I feel it is almost a metaphor for how you can be as creative as you want with Goldwell - as though your almost able to sketch out the perfect hairstyle/cut/colour, and Goldwell could create it for you. 

Briefing at Goldwell HQ

This morning we had the a presentation at The Goldwell Academy on Sackville Street in Green Park. We were given an outline of the company's history and values by  Michelle Cox- Brand Marketing Manager for Goldwell.

Key points I took from the presentation were the companies main claim "Dedicated to Colour Perfection"  --- which they achieve by the use of

• Product Initiatives
• Ongoing Education (within the academy and its salons) 
• Icons (Brand Ambassadors) 
• Events such as Colour Zoom - the worldwide hair colourist competition.

Their Philosophy is "People don't buy brands, they join them"

 Afterwards, we were introduced to the 'Play It Strong' theme by William Wilson - the Head of Technical and Creative Direction at Goldwell. 

William showed us the new video that showcases the new trends coming through in 2011. We were seeing this even before it went live to industry as the outline for the year, as that will happen on Monday. 

The Video highlighted  a lot of trends that Goldwell deemed key and influential for 2011. The main theme running through was one of:

•  a chess game 
• The colours black/white/red (Good news as we favoured these colours in our initial Pink Group brain storm)
• Strong, independant yet playful characters. 
• The girls were often boysish, whilst still retaining their femininity
• The focus was on hair, but all aspects of the image (styling, makeup, model, photogrpahy) were now being considered - this is fairly new for Goldwell as a company
• Focusing specifically on Hair colours, Blackened tones were prominent.

A name that keeps being repeated over and over is GEORGE LAMB, who seems to have done the impossible and made grey cool :) We will try to not imitate this, but to be inspired to create the NEXT influence and be trend setters rather than followers.

Why am I blogging???? :)

This blog provides a year-long opportunity for me to reflect on my learning which will support my personal career planning and future aspirations. This will encompass my experiences on all units during my specialism year, and will enable me to make links and cross references between them. 

I will be able to identify the different factors that have helped shape my progress and the ways I have responded to these.

Through the evaluation of my final assignments, along with broader skills related to areas such as enterprise, practice and professional/career development, I will also identify and evaluate personal strengths and aspirations and establish clear strategies for future planning.