Val garland

Val garland is defiantly one of the most influential makeup artists around, known for breaking the rules of makeup and working with legends such as Alexandra McQueen and always being seen backstage at Vivienne Westwood, “I’m not afraid; I don’t mind if I’m wrong. I was a skinhead, a punk, and a New Romantic – I belonged to so many different tribes when I was growing up. I’ve always been a rebel, so if something’s wrong then I’m going to like it. There’s something about England that makes you not afraid to take a risk.” I looked at val garland early on in my project, starting from our summer project of where we was to see ourself in the future. Val garland has always been of great influence to me and I have always admired her work as it takes on a form of art. Some of my favourite work from garland has to be her work with Vivienne Westwood, her ability to think outside the box and create something completely original has always been of fascination to me, so it was no wider that I took inspiration from one of her looks for Westwood to inspire me whist creating a contemporary Elizabethan look. 

What i wanted to take form this look and put into my own work, as well as making it contemporary and also elizabethan was firstly the colours, as black and red were considered wealthy colours in the Elizabethan era as they had to come from different countries and therefor were expensive as to transportation reasons. 

Also the pale skin was very popular in the Elizabethan era as this was also a sign of wealth, as it meant you did not have to work outside which many slaves and lower classes had to do, which evidently resulted in a tan. Elizabeth was always painted looking very pale and also most had a white completion, which we know is due to the use of white lead used on the skin, and was also known for women to have veins drawn in to make there skin almost look translucent.

However, the thing i really liked and felt i made a connection to Elizabeth in  this portrait of Garlands work is how of course the look is unwearable and over exaggerated, but looking at what Elizabeth used to wear would also be seen as unwearable, as no one would ever paint there faces white and put on an insane amount of blusher. But although this image captures the queens obsession over an ideal image, i feel the makeup created by Garland also corresponds and holds to Elizabeth's personality and shows her real self. As underneath all the heavy makeup and the face that she puts on, she was put on such a high and unrealistic pedestal for the people and was looked at as the next best thing to God, people forgot that underneath it all she was just a human, doing her best for the country she loved and devoted her whole life to.

I feel that to show her strong personality i will be using the red and the black using strong bold movements and scratching into the makeup using a mascara wand. This represents her wealth and power by the bold colours, but the strokes show her control, as they will be placed following the contours of my skin. The scratches represent her council and the threats she faces in her position of power, and how others were conspiring against her in attempts to take her off the thrown, either because of her protestant values, because she was a woman, or because she was a woman ruling without a master or husband.

However through the pale completion which i will also be keeping as i feel this also keeps with traditional Elizabethan makeup, i want to remove some of the white makeup, as i want to show that underneath it all she was a human and a person, just like her people.