Initial Cage Wig Designs (based on shape)

Cage Designs;

As outlined throughout my proposal and research stage of my project, there will be one cage within the project, which will look at the extravagance of Georgiana's love of gambling. I believe this is the most appropriate node of her life to combine with a cage as it will express all her extravagance and showy lifestyle through the hair. I have initially sketched some shapes which have been inspired by the mood boards and images I have so far collected. The sketches will be narrowed down and further developed within my next stage of development.

 The left hand image has combined the extravagance of a decorated wig from the 1700's with pearls and gold coins, as well as red feathers representing Georgiana's danger of her ways.

The right hand wig looks at a more modern rococo based wig - one side uneven to the other, where the hair is sculpted into a large barrel curl, flowing with money. The left side of the hair and her face is covered in gold leaf, representing the patch on her life that is gambling.

 The third design (left) again uses red feathers to signify danger, amongst money notes, and gold coins which are draped down from the top of the head onto georgianas face. Mini curls decorate around the hairline and barrel curls make this a more extravagant style.

Design four (right) uses a purple feather, to signify the luxury of georgianas lifestyle and ways, combined with gold coins again draped across the face. The use of barrel curls around the face is echoes again as well as the use of an elongated relaxed curl extending from the intricate hair at the top of the head, down onto the shoulder.

The final two designs have gone against the cliche style of a gambling shoot and looked at combining the extravagance of Georgiana and Antoinette's friendship into modern day, placing a roulette wheel into the right hand wig made up of intricate curls, and using the structure of the wheel on the left hand wig. Neither of these ideas are ones I am looking to develop, however the idea of the obvious was something I wanted to experiment with and putting this simply on paper has enabled me to do this.

I am now looking to develop idea's 1, 3 and 4 further, initially by drawing these up into a more detailed plan also carefully considering the dressing of the back of the wig, and how they will combine with my other designs.

Half Wig Designs;

The second wig I have outlined and began to create is my half wig. This is made of human hair and should be seamlessly inserted into my models hair. Below are 3 ideas to represent Georgiana's love life through hair. All of which are to be trialled on my dolly block, prior to further designs and developments.

 Design 1 looks at a very pristine yet intricate style of the hair. It is a lot smaller than the cage designs, and perhaps represents the innocent Georgiana, who has many intricate emotions and sides to her personality. The use of barrel rolls and curls to create texture into the hair is something which is modelled around Georgiana within every painting of her, or representation of her. A bit more length should potentially be added to this, due to the fact the wig is 18 inches long, and this should be utilised to its best ability!

The second design uses more length within the hair, as design 4 did within the cages, extending curls down onto the shoulders from the face, something again popular within the 18th century. The front of the style has a modern parting, separated by two opposite barrel curls, into a structured, yet volumised updo. The hair is directed to the back of the hair where structured curls are extended around the back of the head. When trialling this idea I am also looking to trial barrel curls and other techniques seen within the 1700's to create a smart yet sophisticated style to represent Georgiana.

The final style is one much more simplistic, yet much more common in illustrations and paintings of Georgiana. Often she was seen with extremely curly ringleted hair, which would be very large, with a structured 'frizz based texture' at the top, and would elongate down into extended looser curls. This is an idea which does not represent my dressing skills well, and is more appropriate to period, but is one that I would like to try to experiment with curling the hair and different ways of doing this.




The design process is continuing to develop outcomes consistently, and I am now working on further development of these designs, as well as designs for the political side of Georgiana.