For the third project of this semester, we are making a portrait of a famous fashion designer in the style of an artist. I always admire Vivian Westwood for her vigorous creativity, so I chose her as the designer for this portrait.

Firstly, I did some research on the style of Vivian Westwood. Her was iconic for looking punk and modern, with very pale skin, dark lip color, and sometimes very strange and yet spontaneous eye makeup.

I was particularly interested in the first picture which she had red circles around her eyes and huge earrings.

For the artist, I chose Rene Magritte. I always loved Surrealism, which was also the theme of my Seminar final paper. I think both Rene Magritte and Vivian Westwood have a lot similarity that they are both very energetic and productive in their art practices, and both are very skeptical and rebellious

I specially looked up his paintings that were in portrait, and I was fascinated by the sense of emptiness and doubt in his works. The several elements that are often used in his paintings are fruit, human body and sky, so I incorporated those into my own piece.

When making my portrait, I started by dressing a nude overall and photoshopped myself into a mannequin–which is another element that is highly used by surreal artists like Giorgio de Chirico, Man Ray, and so on. I also incorporated other elements to make the style look more alike Rene Magaritte’s work

And then I added my own picture of wearing a wig with makeup like Vivian Westwood.

After the Critique:

I think what I want to improve is that to make the two parts of the head look more consistent in style. And also probably changing the photoshopped earrings into real Vivian West wood earrings, which will definitely give more hints about the identity of the designer.