This is just a few styles of poses I think we should consider for the boys at the shoot. Most are very casual but extremely iconic- if you were standing far away, you can still tell its the beatles just from the silhouettes.

Also, I found this image from UK Vouge 'best of Brittish' was the title.

 I think the use of a woman in the photo with the men in the iconic suits would be really effective but instead of her looking feminine in a dress, we could have her in a slightly lighter suit with slightly darker eye make-up. It would really reflect the trend we are going for.

lailax

masculine make up

I have just done a little bit of research on male make-up. I came across hundreds of tutorials- I didnt realise there are so many ways to do a man's make-up!
Anyway, I have uploaded this video because its a little bit clearer on how to achieve male contour lines. Also, it is a little bit stronger on the technique used which I feel will be better on camera. I thought it would help us with the boys tomorrow and possibly with the girls on the later shoot as their make up will need to look masculine.

(this is quite a lengthy video, believe me there are longer ones out there! but you might want to just skip through selected points rather than watch the whole thing, good video tho)!

lailax

Drag Kings!

"Drag kings are mostly female performance artists who dress in masculine drag and personify male gender stereotypes as part of their performance. A typical drag king routine may incorporate dancing and singing or lip-synching. Drag kings often perform as exaggeratedly macho male characters or impersonate male celebrities like Elvis Presley. Several drag kings became British music hall stars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and British pantomime has preserved the tradition of women performing in male roles.

The term drag king is sometimes used in a broader sense, to include female-bodied people who dress in traditionally masculine clothing for other reasons. This usage includes women temporarily attempting to pass as men and women who wish to present themselves in a masculine gender role without identifying as a man. Some transmen also self-identify as drag kings.

Many modern women wear men's hats, ties, jackets, or even full suits for fashion reasons (e.g. the "Annie Hall style"). These women are not considered drag kings."




- taken from ihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_king

I have found this blog which I think could give us some great ideas for the shoots,

http://community.livejournal.com/blackcigarette/945126.html

There are some great images on here. I have made a mini mood board of the ones I think are great.

I think this image in particular could inspire the hair and make up for the shoot.

laila x

MADNESS!

''Madness are a British pop/ska band from Camden Town in London, that formed in 1976^. The band continue to perform with their most recognised lineup of seven members, although their lineup has varied slightly over the years. They were one of the most prominent bands of the late-1970s''

Again, more inspiration for styling and poses for the models to portray.

In comparison to the 'Hurts', the Madness seem to have a more qwerky and more fun expreimental images.

There is more movement and emotion.

*Vicki

More HURTS poses

Here are some of the plain motionless poses that the Hurts perform.

We could use them for ideas for the photoshoot with the male models or maybe even the women.

*Vicki

MUSICIAN INSPIRATION

HURTS

Here are Videos from a new modern duet band called 'HURTS'

From watching these videos, the two men that are the band members have such a unique style compared to many other musicians nowadays. 

They both seem to pose as very boring and there are alot of plain expressions from them. they seem to have a very sleek look. Black and white is shown alot from many images and videos they feature in and suits/shirts/braces/suit trousers etc.. seem to be their style.

If you look closely at the video above, towards the end areas of the video there are women dressed very similarly to the men, and they also portray the same poses.

I thought this Duet would be perfect to look at in terms of styling for both the men and women.

Here are some more examples that are good to look at for ideas.

 

This is an image of the women acting as men in the first video above.

Notice how they are posing as men through their body language and facial expressions.

*Vicki

Inspiration: Hair

As well as being iconic for their clothing, other factors of their appearance also made them iconic. The hair cuts of the 1960s were really sharp and clean cut and impeccably conservative. However when the Beatles came along in the rock and roll era, the crew cut went out of the window:

The Beatles had more of a loose style when it came to their hair, some may even use the word "shaggy".

The hair cut commonly became known as the mop top haircut- long at the back and sides and features straight fringe.

This style was radical for its era and is still popular today in fashion and the music industry.

Liam Gallagher adopted this style during the Brit-pop era of the 1990s. Young American Artists also favour hair styled in this way for example Justin Bieber:

T x

Styling.

THE BEATLES - HELP

This Video is of the band playing Help. I watched this to see what they used to wear whist on stage. For our photo shoot, if we were to decide to go with male models I thought that it would be appropriate to look into the actions, poses and clothing of the beatles.

All four of them in this video have Skinny fit trousers, white shirts buttoned to the top, a thin tie, a black blazer, and black wincklepicker shoes.

Looking at the hair they seem to all have a 'mop' look, its not sharp or neat, but flicks are what give the hair style shape and most likely set a new trend back then.

*Vicki

SUITS YOU SIR

This is part of a report taken from WGSN

i found images of two different looking suits both in the summer range. In the beatles they all seemed to have the same sense of style apart from John Lennon. He seemed to be more Boho and Hippy looking than the others. This report jumped out at me as the two images below show a contrast between smart and sleek, and the boho look.

 

Suits you, sir: summer cotton suits for me

Ah, summer. Many a song has been written about it. The warmth of the sun. Hot fun in the summertime. But when work demands won't allow a man to be lazy, retailers are offering cool, crisp summer suits to keep them cool and dry. 

 Versatile, casual… and glam

 

*Vicki

 

A Beatles Wardrobe

The Beatles went for a completely different look when they released their album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band a few years later. Wearing bold and bright military jackets and sporting longer hair and mustaches, they completely reinvented their image and created trends all over the place.

 

Over-the-top colorful and patterned materials, a military jacket with colored denim jeans, some hippie-inspired accessories for a bohemian feel.

 When the Beatles arrived in the United States in February 1964, they were mobbed by fans.

They were dressed in suits with ties, a clean-cut look which was the total opposite to the Boho and hippy era.

The look was simply, fitted trousers, a shirt, a skinny tie and shiney smart shoes.

 Here is a selection of items I found that I thought reminded me of the beatles and the 'All You Need Is Love' single. Everything is colourful, differently patterend and bold. I hoped that some of this selection of images would of related to the film 'The Beatles Yellow Submarine'.

 

 

*Vicki.

 

 

Fashion trend: Rope

On our chosen image the styling follows a military trend which involves a lot of rope and tassles. I find this really interesting as it creates texture to the outfits, and could also be an angle for us to look apon as during my research I have come across trends on this years catwalk shows which include a lot of rope detailing.

These are some examples of the trends on the 2011 catwalk using rope and tassel detailing. I really like nautical and rural effect it adds to the garments, this could be something we could experiment when doing our photoshoot as we are planning on shooting at Liverpool Albert Dock where the nautical, military theme would tie in nicely and create an overall nautical feel to the images.

I also went to buy some small pieces of rope and tassels to study the texture and movement it can create, I photographed the rope using a macro lens to capture the fine detail of the threads and tassels. I used photoshop to change the Hue and Saturation to create a colour scheme similar to the colours on the album cover.

Ax

Floral Trends

The album cover contains many different trends and styles and one of the most dominant is the floral aspect. The whole image is surrounded by flowers, the intention of the cover is to portray the funeral of Sgt.Pepper, however, the strange part is that the whole thing is very colourful and exciting to look at. This album mothered the psychedelic, summer of love era, floral patterns and inspiration is still being used by designers today to create a feminine or dilusional visual. The whole 'hippie' trend was influenced and created by The Beatles and has lived on ever since influencing the designers regularly.    

Part of the hippie culture was given to the drug scene and psychedelic rock was born. It was produced to go with LSD and other mind-altering drugs. Bands such as Pink Floyd and the Rolling Stones experimented with psychedelic rock, as did the Beatles with their Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album.

Rihanna's recent music video 'Only girl' seemed revolve around a floral trend, including the styling and the set. I think this can give a very feminine look but also sometimes an 'other-wordly' almost as though you was in a dream. The colours are bright and reflect the colours of our chosen image, it also shows how the floral trend has developed in modern times and has adapted to the styles of today.

Ax

The Beatles Image:

As well as the iconic suit and smart wear- the Beatles also wore rather bright colours in the late sixties  known as the psychedelic period. The Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Album cover is a clear reflection on this. It composes of the Beatles in Military Jackets designed by Manuel Cuevas, who was a costume designer for rock and roll stars such as the Rolling Stones. The suits were produced by M Berman Ltd who were bespoke costume designers at the time.

This whole concept of creating a set by Peter Blake is amazing, the album cover almost looks like a funeral, with the flowers and the congregation of people. Behind the Beatles are the personal heroes and people they would liked to have an audience with. The 2D people are life sized and were painstakingly (i imagine) cut out by Peter Blake. The whole thing was done in a studio and I think its a wonderful example of montage.

For our project we could use this type of art form as an appropriation, we could use the studio to shoot the models, in the style of clothes we choose and construct a montage on photoshop. 

T x

The Beatles Image: Early 60s

The Beatles played a massive part in culture and fashion in the 1960s. They had a different style to what was being worn at the time and radically changed the fashion of that period. They created this whole new image direction for society and rock and roll bands that were up and coming.
The main early look comprised of black and grey suits in an Edwardian style (thin labels and darted at the side panels), that was later adopted by the mod- youth movement in the late 1960s.

Personally, I admire the style of using smart/ evening wear as a smart/casual day wear- it really changed the way society dressed and is still influencing the music industry.

If we used this styling as a representation of an appropriation it would be successful and we could experiment with male models in the studio maybe to re-create a famous Beatles pose or maybe just use the suits as our fashion appropriation.

T x

Other photographs...

The majority of the beatles photographs were black and white, and outdoors and often around liverpool. The images have a serious feel to them due to the dull shades, but the images also look very classic, representing the band very well. hayley x

Photo by Richard Avedon. I like the colours used in this image. Some are similar to the colour pallet used on the Sgt. pepper image. It is very different to a lot of Beatles images i have looked at which use very mellow, ordinary shades of colour. It gives the Beatles a much more vibrant, fun appearance. It is inspiration for how we can experiment with our own images if we base the link with the original image on colour.
hayley x

Other Beatles photo shoots

The Abbey Road Shoot.
Photographed by Iain Macmillan.
Chosen because of work he had done for Yoko.
He was only given about 15 minutes to get the shot. Standing on a ladder in the road, He took only about eight pictures of the Beatles crossing in front of Abbey Road Studio while a policemen held traffic.
Prior to the shoot, Paul McCartney had sketched his ideas for the cover. Macmillan added a more detailed illustration.
After the shoot, McCartney studied the transparencies and chose the fifth one for the album cover. It was the only one when all four Beatles were walking in step. It also satisfied The Beatles' desire for the world to see them walking away from the studios they had spent so much of the last seven years inside.


Hayley x

Background Research on Sgt. Pepper

The Beatles wanted to create a record that could, in effect, tour for them. McCartney decided that he should create fictitious characters for each band member and record an album that would be a performance by that fictitious band. The Beatles' fame motivated them to grow moustaches, and was an inspiration for the disguise of their flamboyant Sgt. Pepper costumes. McCartney was well known for going out in public in disguise and all four had used aliases for travel bookings and hotel reservations. So the character Sgt. Pepper was actually created by Paul McCartney.


Hayley x

Military Trend.

The main style trend on the album cover is military, which also links in with the name of the album (Sgt. Pepper..) and the reasoning behind that. Military always seems to influence the fashion industry every year in some way, whether its colour of detail. Military green has been noted to be one of the biggest colours of the year. I researched on WGSN and found a 1940's post war trend which was inspired by the change in womens fashion, during and after the war. Women became more acceptable in trousers and working a 'mans' job which involved them wearing overalls and baggy clothes, this has inspired many trends over the years and especially urban fashion. After looking more into the military trend I noticed footwear is a big aspect of the overall look, black lace-up boots have become an essential for the military-esque look. However, I found that red is going to take a big role in the military trend this season, especially in accessories and footwear, I think this gives a great clash and hads a powerful, but feminine touch.

I aslo started to research into fashion photography and ideas that have been used involving the military theme. I really like these images as they seem very powerful and the lighting is strong and defined. The subtle hints of military seem to work better than trying to create a replica of the war, the accessories tell the story and give off the right vibe without overpowering the images.

I also looked into music videos and how the artists of today still use the military trend to express a certain feeling they are portraying. These two videos influenced the fashion industry at the time and brought the military trend back into fashion. Rihanna's 'Hard' video tends to take the military styling back to basics, with original colours and style, however, Cheryl Cole's 'Fight for this love' creates a more unique twist to the trend and as mentioned above brings colour to the mix.

Colour Scheme.

I took the colour scheme from the album cover we have chosen, and I noticed that the main colours used were very bright and bold and clashed with the rest of the image. I started to research exsiting colour trends and found that these bold colours have been noted on the catwalks this year. Designers such as Jill Sanders, have used block colours to create a bright clash. I then started to look on WGSN and found similar colour palettes to the one found in our image, which have been inspired by clashing and unpredictability. I really love the words to describe the colours, such as; intoxicating, chemical and weird. I think kind of sums up the london underground scene in the sixties as it was corrupt with sex and drugs. I then started to look at online shopping websites such as ASOS and Topshop and found that these trends are now being released in stores, however I found that the bright colours where kept in the accesories and shoe departments as this seems to be more commercial for everyday shoppers. I feel we could use this colour scheme, however make it more subtle by using only hints of fusia, aqua, lime, yellow etc. in the styling, by accesories and make-up. 

The inside of the album cover is a visual explosion of colour and is a good example of colour blocking. One of the biggest up and coming trends for spring/summer is bright, block, colour colour clashing. I love the neon feel to the brightness of the colours, it is a good example of Peter Blakes work as he trys to incorporate brightness with very desaturated and dull images, which is something we want to experiment with in our photography.

Ax

Our chosen image...

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

The image we have decided to use as our inspiration is the album cover of The Beatles album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, created by Peter Blake. We feel it is one of the most iconic images from the 60's and has lots of depth and colour we can work with. There are so many elements to the image we could use to appropriate the image such as; the colour scheme, the military styling, the flowers, the instruments, the roping and the use of colour mixed with black and white. By taking these elements and incorporating them into out styling and photography we can create images with a similar style as Peter Blake.

Ax

1960's Photographers

Robert Whitaker

 

This photographer was mainly known for his work with The Beatles in the late sixties, with whom he became very close friends with. He spent many following years by the side, photographing them at work, rest and play.

Robert Whitaker's success with The Beatles allowed him unlimited access to the London underground scene where he witnessed the changes and impact The Beatles made on life in the sixties. 

One of the more popular images by Whitaker became the cover for their album 'Yesterday and Today' it was shortly named the 'Butcher' photograph and seems very oddly styled with the broken dolls and meat placed around them.

Quirkiness could be used in our photography and styling to create an unusual edge as in the sixties The Beatles invented a new norm and we could use this edge as a new trend or fashion in today's industry.

David Bailey








Bailey became the fashion photographer for Vogue in 1960, he also began socialising with actors, musicians and royalty. Alongside Whitaker he helped create a culture of high fashion and celebrity chic and influence the swinging 60's. His freelance work involved photographing many famous people, including The Beatles. He concentrated on portraiture style shots in simple black and white film with very casual expressions.

Ax

Make up ideas

here is a mini moodboard i put together showing some make up styles i think are relevant.

also I have found a fab website

http://galadarling.com/article/2010-style-direction-psychedelic-ladies-who-lunch

I think you should have a look, it has some great styling ideas on there.

Lastly I found this;

I know its an advert for ray ban, but i was thinking how cool would it look if we based it around the beatles style glasses!

laila x