My Final Assessment of my partners design

These are the final images for my hair assessment. On the whole, I am pleased with the way my assessment went, I am not very confident in hair but through practice I feel I managed to pull off Charlottes design. The techniques this design features are curling, buns, backcombing, plaiting and padding. The thing I found most challenging about this design was that there are quite a few elements going on, so sectioning the hair correctly to ensure I had enough hair to work with for each element was very difficult! I wish that I could of gotten a smoother finish over the padding, so that the curled sections placed on top stood out more. This is something I would definitely work on for next time. The communication between Charlotte and I was really good, and she definitely took my skill level into consideration when planning her design.

PARTNERS FINAL DESIGN:

NEEDED:

Paddle Brush

Tail Comb

Large Curler

Small Curler

Padding

Hair tie

METHOD: 

1. Section off the front section of hair into two. Make one of the sections bigger than the other as this one needs to cover the padding, and the front section is to curl and use as decoration.
2. Create your plait to attach your padding to. French plait from one side of the head to the other. Pin down.
3. Attach padding to the plait (see Padding)
4. backcomb the middle section of hair at the root and pull back to cover the padding. 
5. Tuck the hair under and secure with pins. 
6. Curl the very first section with the small curler, and place the curls over the padding to create ringlets going back over the head. Pin down.
7. Take the top two thirds of the remaining hair and use it to create a bun. 
8. Take a small piece from the middle of the remaining hair and plait it. Wrap this around the base of the bun to conceal the hair tie. 
9. Curl the remaining hair with the large curler and leave loose. 

Evaluation

Overall I have enjoyed creating a contemporary Elizabethan hairstyle, researching hair from the time and developing this into a final design. I feel I have learned a lot about hair and become much more confident, as before starting the course I had very little experience.  At the beginning I really struggled as I felt very inexperienced, but due to practicing at home my confidence has grown. I enjoyed practicing basic hair techniques such as curling and creating buns, and techniques much more specific to the project such crimping and padding. The Elizabethans used gems and ribbons to decorate their hair and I have enjoyed being creative and working these elements into my designs. I think that early on in the project I could of been better organised, as unfortunately I now have a lack of pictures for my technical file. This is definitely something that I would improve upon for the next project, as it would be very beneficial to be able to track my progress more efficiently. I find research quite difficult, especially presenting it in a way that shows my thought processes. I feel like over the course of this project I have improved on this through the use of my blog, and now have a better understanding on how to present my ideas. I was very pleased with the communication between my partner and I, we discussed our ideas and made minor changes to our designs in order to make them achievable for our parter to create. Overall, I have enjoyed this project and feel that I have learned a lot, in the way of both practical skills and research techniques. 

Shapes and Structures

Elizabethan hair is very much about the high, padded structures and shapes. There are a couple of different shapes that are seen in hair from this period such as. Elizabethans would of used 'Rats' as padding to create these styles. These hair styles were associated with upper class women or royalty as women who had to work would not be able to afford or maintain such styles. 



HEART SHAPE:
This shape is shown frequently, and features two sets of padding, creating a 'heart' shape on top of the head. I think this is a style heavily associated with the queen as she is wearing it in a lot of her portraits. 






Adaptations of this shape are still seen in fashion today, for example on the Alexander Mcqueen Runway. 













CENTRAL PADDING:
This is also a very common Elizabethan style, padding would be placed in the centre of the head to create this tall, rounded structure. 

This is the method we were shown in class of how to create padded styles:

NEEDED:

Padding (Tights stuffed with tissue or bundles of felt hair) 

Sectioning comb

Bobby Pins

Geisha Pins

Paddle Brush

METHOD:

1. Section the hair so that all of the hair you want to cover the padding is in front.
2. Start a french plait from one side of the head to another. (See Plaits section)
3. Pin plait in place.
4. Choose your padding and check the size against the head. 
5. Begin to pin your padding with Geisha Pins, I do this by hooking them up through the padding and then pulling them down, hooking them into the plait to secure the padding.
6. Continue until the padding is fully secure.
7. Bring the hair you need to cover you padding back. Backcomb the hair at the root using your Sectioning comb, repeatedly bring the comb down to backcomb the hair creating lift at the root.
8. Pin the hair back over the padding, tucking it in as you go if necessary. 

And some pictures of some looks I created...

hji. (2012). 2012 rounded hairstyle. Available: http://www.hji.co.uk/hairstyle-gallery/2012-rounded-beehive-hair-hairstyle/. Last accessed 3rd December 2014.

goldderby.com. (2014). Oscars: Most successful film . Available: http://www.goldderby.com/photos/250/3310/shekhar-kapur's-'elizabeth'-films~-2-wins-9-nominations.html. Last accessed 3rd december 2014.

handbag.com. (2007). Spring Summer 07 hair trends. Available: http://www.handbag.com/beauty-bag/i448786/springsummer-07-hair-trends-step-back-in-time-alexander-mcqueen.html. Last accessed 3rd December 2014.

My Final Hair Design

 This is the final design I came up with for my assessment. I really like the way it looks modern and wearable but still has Elizabethan influences. I chose this design because it was a contemporary mixture of my other two designs, taking some elements from each of them. For example, both of my previous designs featured buns at the back, which I enjoyed as I think this allows the room for the rest of the style to be more relaxed, as you are still keeping quite a traditional feature. All of my designs also featured padding, but for this design I chose to use Rats instead of the usual padding, as I prefer the final look it gave as it is more subtle. This design used skills such as padding, curling, backcombing and making a bun. I feel that Charlotte carried out my design well, and within the time. I feel that next time I could possibly try to design something slightly   more complex now I am slightly more confident in hair. 

My 3 final designs

My first of the three designs is very classic Elizabethan. It features large padding on both sides to create a heart shaped structure, with the hair pulled back into a bun. On my design I drew some screw in pearls that I would of used if I chose this design as my final one, but I didn't use them in my practice. This design involves crimping, curling and padding, and I think the main challenge involved is ensuring the padding is in the correct place, and is well covered.

 When I practiced this design in class, I found the basic techniques fairly simple to pull off and I was pleased with the final result. I felt though that it was too traditional to use as my final design as the brief was for a contemporary Elizabethan hairstyle.

 For this next design, there is a lot going on. Crimping, Curls, Padding and a bun are involved in this style. Most of the elements are very classic once again, but leaving some curls loose at the front modernises it and keeps it looking slightly different. I also used a looser curl for the tendrils hanging down that what would of been used.









I asked my partner Charlotte to try this design out on me, as It would be done on my hair and I wanted to check if I had enough hair to pull it off. I was pleased with the look, but where as I have mid-long length hair, I felt it was quite difficult to cover the padding, create the bun and still have some pieces left out. I felt that the look ended up looking quite 1960's and that there was too much going on with all of the elements. The challenge with this look was definitely the sectioning, as there is so much going on you have to ensure you leave the right amount of hair to complete each element of the style.

 This is the design I chose for my final contemporary Elizabethan hair look. I liked some features from the last look such as the bun and padding, but wanted something slightly more simple but contemporary. I feel the look I have created is quite pretty and bridal with Elizabethan Influences. I wanted to include peals as they are often associated with Elizabeth as they signify purity and virginity (something which is also often associated with weddings). I used lower padding than in previous designs to keep the look wearable and contemporary, and had curls covering the padded area but kept them more loose and messy than in traditional styles.  The main challenge with this style was getting the padding even as Charlotte used 'Rats' which is a fake hair type of padding. This gives a more subtle effect, but can loose its shape if pinned incorrectly.