I had always wanted to do a shoot with these beautiful swan neck mannequins – and what better time than during a pandemic! Working on them to make them look real meant really thinking about the placement and the amount of hair that I used. Their heads are much smaller than real heads and they have no ears to use to create depth and no shoulders to create form. They were all looking in the same direction so I had to chop off some of the heads and reposition them.
The next challenge was to buy hair that was not expensive, so most of the bits I used came from the bargain bucket at the back of the shop! But the biggest challenge I faced was trying to make them look elegant and not like a college project. Once I had worked all this out I started to line them up in my living room and kept looking at them and pulling bits off and repositioning hairlines to make them work. They were in my living room for months, with bits of hair all over the place!
Then to complete the picture I went to the fabric shop and brought some fabrics to help bring them to life. I contacted a stylist friend of mine who dressed them – the whole idea was that they were treated like real people with life and individual characters. Making the same facial expression, it took time and patience to make them look individual and different.
Find out more about Brooks & Brooks: www.brooksandbrooks.co.uk