This is Rita Hagan, Rita won the Slow makeover that I gave away in November 2010. Rita is a dedicated mother who slightly forgot what ‘Rita the lady’ could look like. Rita, a Finnish woman by birth, finds it difficult to choose colours that suit her well. Moreover, she doesn’t know very well which clothing styles harmonize with her figure. She is quite tall but does not make a strong impression. ‘A little extra in the middle’ makes it hard to find clothes that match her well.
Rita wants to catch the eye more and I am going to help her. The first step is composing a palette of colours that both suit her well and help her to be noticed. She will create a more distinct profile of herself, if she increases her contrasts. This means that she combines lighter colours with darker colours and cooler colours with warmer tones. She has one green and one brown eye, which is quite extraordinary, and I’ll try to emphasize her eyes as part of her appearance.
We look at her figure, measure her proportions and I tell her which clothing will probably suit her well and why. I take a picture of Rita, her long hair pinned together. I need this picture in order to experiment with new make-up and hair styles by means of software. I show her all kinds of manipulated photographs and she reacts to these new Rita’s. I demonstrate the effect of another hair colour and style on her face.
Both Rita and I fancy a darker colour of hair than she has now. It enhances contrasts, but also looks more classic and elegant, which suits Rita. In fact a lighter hair colour goes with her too, but transforms her into a type of woman, with whom she identifies less. I agree with her.
Then it is time to go through the clothes that she already has, and after that we go looking together for the missing items for a perfect outfit, preferably of a sustainable origin.
We find a dark green tunic by Alchemist, that is made in an environmentally friendly way, in the web-shop watMooi. The colour suits her very well and on top of that it has a very flattering cut.
We also go together to the hairdresser. Marike Cazemier in Haarzuiver cuts her hair and colours it with a plant based colour from Oliebe that gets deeper the more often you colour it. Therefore Rita’s hair still looks quite light but it will get darker in a beautiful natural manner without painting over the natural colour nuances of the hair. We bought makeup by Santé, environmentally friendly natural cosmetics. I use this to put makeup on her before photographer André Blom will take pictures of her. And here is the result!
Claudia Hulshof
Sustainable Style
image credit: André Blom
