An Introduction to Make-up for Fashion and Beauty
The fashion industry is driven by a group of professions and individuals that inspire and feed off each other's ideas. Who are they? Well, here's a list of those most imvolved:
- the media;
- designers;
- advertisers;
- manufacturers;
- stylists;
- models;
- make-up artists;
- hairdressers;
- and photographers.
That's quite a large group. And not only do they feed off each other, but they also take their inspiration from street and pop culture, history, fine art, and the latest changes in society. All to feed the public's demand for new trends.
As you can imagine, this is a highly competitive world. To get to the top, good is not sufficient: you need to be excellent.
Make-up artists work the fashion circuit
The fashion make-up artist works with highly creative people who are passionate about fashion. The models, photographers, stylists, and make-up artists are all freelance and often from the same agencies. They tend to work together and build up an intimate knowledge of each other's work.
To be successful, therefore, the make-up artist needs to develop relationships with fashion professionals by working the circuit - London, New York, Paris, and Milan. When you work the circuit, you will also need to do editorial work as well as the fashion shows. And remember, the fashion world is international and knows no boundaries.
Establishing your fashion make-up style
As a fashion make-up artist, it's important that you can be categorised as being expert in a particular look. So your style may be 'sexy', 'minimalist', 'classic', 'edgy', 'funky', 'grunge', 'beauty' etc.
When you have your own signature style, you can be catalogued and will have your own lines of work. This makes it easy for your agent to convince big clients that you are what they need. This is how a fashion make-up artist becomes 'bankable'.
There is no upper age limit for a fashion make-up artist, so long as you keep up to date with the everything happening in the fashion world. This means knowing about he latest models, trends, designers, products, etc. The most successful make-up artists create the looks that provide inspiration in print and shows across the world, influencing a generation of fashion enthusiasts.
Fashion make-up courses at Delamar
If this sounds like a working environment that would appeal to you, we have the courses at Delamar to get you started down the fashion and beauty make-up path. If you already have general make-up skills and now want to focus on fashion and beauty make-up, enrol for our Advanced fashion Make-up Course. Alternatively, if you want to learn make-up from the ground up, enrol in our Complete Make-up Artist Course.
"Before doing the course I worked in the City as an employment lawyer. Although I was forging a successful career and really liked the people I worked with I knew that I did not want to stay in law forever. It took me a long time and a lot of research to decide that doing a hair and make-up course would be the right step for me. What appealed, amongst other things, was the chance to be creative, meet new people, escape a desk based work life and to be really challenged. The prospect of leaving a secure job was a little daunting but I have not looked back, really from my first meeting at Delamar. I chose to visit Delamar because of its excellent reputation and also because of the broad syllabus which covers everything from beauty to casualty to period make-up and wigs. As soon as I visited the Academy I knew it was the place for me, there was a real buzz in the air and hearing Leda's experience and advice really spurred me on to apply. I loved the course and without it I would not have been able to take my first steps into the industry, not only because I learned the basic skills which I need to hone to be successful but also because of the experience of meeting the course tutors, most of whom still work in the industry and were really inspirational. I found the tutors' advice invaluable and I will carry it with me through my career. Since finishing the course I have been doing lots of work experience, including working on student films, community theatre, and some feature films. Most of the work experience I have done has been through introductions by the Academy, again something which I would not have been able to do without doing the course first. If a career in hair and make-up is right for you, Delamar is definitely the place to do it! "Elizabeth Keogh
