BLACK HAIR

Black Hair has been defined in many different ways from different people and so I wanted to go back to the past and see what it really is and what it has affected it to be seen as fake by the world.So I watched different documentaries and videos about African Black Hair and also looked into different books.

Starting from the roots, because Black people were slaves for over a 100 years, they were all mocked for their skin colour, their hair, their features and their body shapes, in fact they were taught to hate themselves over all, especially their hair. Their hair were thicker, messier and coarser than Europeans' hair, of which was straight, elegant and neat looking, so their hair was basically called "Nappy".

To go deeper into my research I wanted to find out what nappy means and what found were two meanings:

1.a piece of towelling or other absorbent material wrapped round a baby's bottom and between its legs to absorb and retain urine and faeces. 

2. tightly coiled hair.

Also, because hair is basically on your head, they use to be called "Nappy Head" and to my own opinion it must have been offensive because in other words they use to be called stinky, dirty, messy and disgusting head. Another reason why they were also called "Nappy" is because they use sleep in very poor conditions, their hair were mostly invested by insects and infections.

Due to this situation they were in, black women wanted something that would make their appearance approachable like European and White American women. So as time went by they all started to use hot combs to straighten their hair, they were so desperate that even though their hair were 1 inch long they would still hot comb it because of the way they were called by their owners. As some countries stopped Black Slavery, black women started using chemicals to straighten their hairs permanently; those chemicals were called "Perms" or "Relaxers". Those chemicals would damage their scalp and hair but they would still keep on going because of the way they had been taught to hate their hair.

However, as time went by black women who were famous started rebelling against the obsession towards straight hair; one of those women was Pat Evans, she shaved her complete head to bold to protest against the modelling industry's obsession with straight hair.

 

Other celebrities of the time that started coming out of their boxes were, Nina Simone, Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder, Patrice Rushen. Another celebrity that also broke the mould of mulatoo that had nominated Hollywood since its earliest days, was Cicely Tyson.

 



Cicely Tyson

Since then, african women have been free minded and have given themselves different choices on which hairstyles they want and they love the most, of which has been called transracial, because it is not one type of hair that they have anymore,they have braids, with curly and straight hair and weaves (fake extensions)  that they can choose from.

So I have to a conclusion that really black hair is different things and it all sums up and goes back to what happened when Africans were traded into slavery. Black Hair is unique, different, fun and it can be done into different things. Braids are part of it and I would like to research further into that direction.
 

VOGUE MAGAZINE COVERS ''MY OWN''

It was really easy to do them, once I knew what I was doing, however it did consume a very good large amount of time; at the end of it, it was worth the time of doing them.

                                   

ANIMATION PROJECT

When I watched the Ralph Lauren 4D Experience video, I thought of doing a Fashion History related animation that would all link to each other into a final dress that is on trend in 2015 and other had an idea of having it on a magazine and so we came up with making a video that was 1 1/2 minutes long of someone flipping through a Vogue Magazine with the same model wearing different dresses that go along with the year. 

I got the chance to do the 80s and 90s , and so I went unto researching how Vogue Magazines looked in those decades and also researched how I could create a Magazine cover. I used Adobe Photoshop CS6 and Youtube to help me to create a Vogue Magazine cover. 

Before I made the actual ones for this project, I practiced over a week and tried to figure out what I needed to know to create a good magazine cover.

I first typed into Google ''Fashion Photography'' and found this picture as I thought it would be suitable for a good Vogue Magazine Cover.

The one on the left is the original version that I did and the right one is an improved version of it. I felt like it needed some improving as most of the text was on one side, I thought it would have looked much better if they were spread out a bit. 

Apart from this one, I did do other ones and also figured out how to transfer a drawing that I already done unto Photoshop by scanning it as a picture and opening it like any other picture so that's how I could finally create a Magazine cover.

These were other practice ones that I did. As you can see, on your right hand side, the fashion illustration that I did of a dress that I saw from an original 1950 Vogue Magazine page, was scanned and placed into my own created Vogue Magazine Cover.

I really enjoyed doing those, in fact the video that I watched really helped me.

Sources: www.Google.com

              www.vogue.co.uk/magazine

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aAP1-hoEHk

ANIMATION

Animation started in back in 1650 with the magic lantern, however some people believe that the first animation was done by Walt Disney ''White Snow'' in 1937 featuring film.

This has developed a lot throughout the years and has become better and better and more attractive for children and even adults to watch on TV. 

Bringing much closer to my interest in fashion, I discovered how animation had been taken into a more four dimensional experience on building, in fact in 2010 Ralph Lauren officiated a 4D experience of their fashion history ,to celebrate their 10th anniversary, on a building in New York, and as time went by they showed it in other big fashion cities like London. 

I watched a video and I was completely amazed by it. In fact I wanted to know more about how they came up with this and resolved it to be successful but I must admit it was pretty complicated but worth it.

RALPH LAUREN 4D EXPERIENCE