Developing hair designs

Developing hair designs

After looking at Victorian hairstyles in class last week I decided that I wanted to include certain features of these styles into my design. Since reading the book, I had imagined my character ‘Cathy’ to have her hair mostly down to reflect her young and free- spirited personality.

I wanted to portray cathy after her death- the part of the book where Heathcliff supposedly sees her ghost/ digs up her grave and holds her in his arms. I knew that the style needed to have some definite structure as Victorians were known for being fascinated with death and often photographed the deceased before they were buried. Therefore, the hair would have been styled- especially as cathy came from a wealthy family.

As I said, I wanted to do something similar to what we did last week in class. As I am portraying cathy after her death I want to create a more relaxed and dishevelled version of this style. Helen told me that it is best to create the style neatly, and then pull out/backcomb certain areas. This is the best method, especially as this is a continuity assessment.

I began by sectioning the hair into three sections. I put rollers into the front section and let them set. I tied the middle section into a ponytail and then into two plaits and then made them into a plait bun. Traditionally, Victorians would have curled the bottom section. As I want my design to be more dishevelled, I put this section into three plaits and then used the straighteners to heat them, which gave a more relaxed zig-zag effect, rather than perfect ringlets.

Once I had completed the look, I started to pull out bits of hair from certain areas. I then took some dry shampoo and sprayed some of the hair to make the hair look chalky, this helps with portraying my character as a ghoul.