Project Evaluation

I have never worked with wigs before, although I have always been interested in learning how to do so, I was excited to learn the skills required to style wigs and how to knot. I have really enjoyed this unit, particularly the learning of new skills in the practical lessons.

I started my research by looking into various cultures, learning how they use hair as a symbolism. I found it really interesting how different cultures have such different rituals and traditions when it comes to their hair, and how different styles and cuts can mean different things in different countries and cultures.

After completing the summer homework, I thought it would be interesting to look further into Chinese hair culture and symbolism, and decided to base my story on this.

A problem which I encountered in this project was the fact that I bought my wig before finalizing my idea – as I wanted to ensure that it arrived in time. This meant that I had a blonde wig when usually you would typically associate China with black hair. I feel that in the end this actually worked really well, as I had to alter my story to fit in with the colour of the hair. I think that it gave a twist to my story, and added more of a contemporary element.

Working with the nylon wig was a lot harder than I anticipated, and I found it difficult to style some of my initial designs. To solve this I had to alter my designs slightly, so that it worked better with the wig.

I was really happy with the outcome of my photos, and I think that the lighting worked really well. I was initially concerned about the outcome of my simple design – as I ran out of time to finish and attach the knotted hairline to the wig, I was worried that the hard edge wig would look really unrealistic once on my model. I used the flowers and braids to disguise this slightly, and I think that it worked well and ended up looking like the models own hair.