Good Afternoon Folks,

A little while ago a seed of an idea popped into my head following my shoot with Sunny Andre earlier in the year. We didn’t quite manage to utilise her amazing cape so this little seed of an idea started to flourish in what was to become the shoot you see today ‘Good Girl Gone Bad’.

I wanted to go completely retro and take us back to a homage of the ’60s and to also explore what it would be like for a young woman, especially a young Hindu woman to exist in an era of great change. I think that she would have been trying to remain true to her culture but also wanting to embrace this amazing time for young people. I can only imagine this would have caused conflict within the family; so my idea for Good Girl Gone Bad was to explore her transition from trying to keep a foot in both camps with conflict, then her complete rebellion into a sassy lady with vampish qualities!

Sunny was definitely up for this and I knew this era would suit her perfectly as she has a love of this look as much as I do. I mooted the idea to Asta Perkins who is the most amazingly talented hair and make-up artist and things started to take shape. It is really difficult when you have images in your head and then to relay them but Asta, as usual was spot on and created this subtle transition beautifully. I wanted to use Wakehurst Place once again as this is such a versatile venue. In particular I wanted to use the Millennium Seed Bank because of its futuristic metallic and glass look. The ’60s was all about the future and the vision at this time often involved lots of metallic influences and glass. I also wanted to symbolise the future for the progression for our Good Girl Gone Bad so this brought it all together nicely!

So we start with our Good Girl; very sweet but with make-up, hair and clothes that may have been frowned upon at the time. Our Good Girl senses her parents disapproval and wants to buck the trend and be accepted by her peer group so we see a change in demeanour. Then next stage is a change of clothes and shoes, which is where the cape comes into play. We can now see that our Good Girl is changing and this would probably be to her parents dismay; the more dismayed her parents are the more she wants to progress and to fit in with her peer group. The final transition is her make-up, which Asta made much darker; gone is the sweet innocent hair band and replaced by vampish sunglasses and so our Good Girl goes Bad! We used a cigarette and cigar in the shoot. Although frowned upon today in the ’60s this was considered a transition to adulthood but for a young Hindu woman smoking would not have been accepted by her family. The cigarette and cigar are symbols of her rebellion and trying to be accepted by her peer group, so these props are a poignant part of the shoot. The laugh is that Sunny and I don’t smoke and never have, Asta has dabbled so managed to get the cigar to look like Sunny was smoking it!!!

Sunny was a brilliant model as she managed to work with me to make those subtle transitions and really get to grips with the project to portray our ‘Good Girl Gone Bad’. Asta was a marvel as I loved the way she changed Sunny’s look; a good make-up artist is a true find and one that can create a look from very scant information (i.e. Asta) is a treasure.

So here are some of the images and I hope you enjoy them as much as we did making them and I did creating the final piece.

Claire 🙂

I want to say a big thank you to:-
Model www.sunnyandre.co.uk
Hair and Make-up www.astaperkins.co.uk/about-asta
Venue www.kew.org/visit-wakehurst