About Me
Hiya I'm Lydia, a graduate from UWE!
As a content creator my practice encompasses creative direction, casting and styling, with a specific focus on makeup. My work explores identity, beauty standards, gender politics, and queer culture, with an emphasis on drag and character creation through digital media. I aim to provoke with my work, with an approach that is both inclusive and humorous.
Expressing myself creatively through makeup has always been extremely important to me and my practice. Makeup has a freedom and art to it, which is intoxicating. This bled into character creation because I am able to transform and create someone new with makeup. Character creation has allowed me to create and tell stories within my work, which has subsequently raised awareness for issues around gender, sexuality, mental health and identity.
INSPIRATION
Queerness, gender politics, beauty, and identity.
Throughout my practice as a creative, queer representation and queer culture has always been a major part of my work. My work accumulates the passion I have surrounding gender, beauty standards and fashion. As a queer person myself, it has always been paramount to explore these themes no matter the brief, as I feel deeply inspired and connected to queer culture.
My final major project started by looking at beauty and the themes that surround it, for example, beauty standards, makeup, drag, self-manipulation. This research led me to explore historical, current and future beauty trends around these themes. Even though the research was centred around beauty, I noticed that queerness, gender politics and identity were also reoccurring themes. Like my research, my work takes on an intersectional approach. Its not just beauty, its also queerness, gender and identity.
MY WORK
PORTFOLIOS
Abundance
Abundance
Abundance - Editorial Spreads
Abundance
Star Signs - Scorpio
Star Signs - Top Trumps
Star Signs - Aries
Reverie - Styling | Makeup
Reverie - Styling | Makeup
Reverie - Styling | Makeup
Reverie - Styling | Makeup
Oaf, Interrupted - Creative Direction | Makeup
Oaf, Interrupted - Creative Direction | Makeup
Oaf, Interrupted - Publication Spreads
Oaf, Interrupted - Creative Direction | Makeup
Sporting Masculinities - Collaboration
Sporting Masculinities - Collaboration
Sporting Masculinities - Collaboration
Sporting Masculinities - Collaboration
DETAIL
Abundance takes inspiration heavily from 17th and 18th century fashion.
Abundance explores gender through the art of drag and how it can transform people, transforming the model. Abundance explores beauty through the lens of age and body standards, challenging stereotypes that surround beauty. The editorial explores fashion through a historical eye, looking at 17th and 18th century fashion and how performative it was. Louis 14th era was known for the decadent style and lifestyle. This resulted in other ‘beauty’ issues like rotten teeth and led poisoning. The people of this era were praised for their beauty even with slight imperfections. The styling includes bigger proportions around the skirt area, to contrast a smaller waist, along with a large decadent wig, to illustrate the decadent lifestyle. Similarly, the makeup for the shoot challenges ideas around beauty and gender. Highlighting the beard on the model to provoke the viewer. Heavily inspired by Rachel Maclean’s ‘Big Yin’ portrait of Billy Connolly.
“I THINK CREATIVELY IT’S IMPORTANT TO HAVE THINGS THAT AREN’T NECESSARILY FULLY UNDERSTANDABLE, BUT ARE AMAZING AND PROVOKE” - MAXINE LEONARD
Graduate Fashion Week in partnership with:
