Sunday, January 25, 2009

D.I.Y. Hair Accessories

Haven't visited Daaron's blog for a long time and pleasantly surprised that he's now into making his own Chinese opera hair accessories. Well I like making them too, but apparently both of us have got our own sources of influence, so the kind we do are not quite the same. For Daaron, his hair accessories are more inspired by the more abstract Taiwanese style while mine are inspired by the more traditional style. Here're some of what I've done so far:

One of my first few creations. Inspiration was drawn from what Li Li wore for "The Birthday Banquet" when she performed in Singapore in 1986. As you can see, I was quite new to the art of hair accessories making, so the aesthetic sense is not there and you can even see wires wrapping around the base in an unsightly manner.

An improved version of the former, drawing a bit of inspiration from the Yueju-style slanted phoenix brooch.

Five-piece accessories experimented with sequins. The whole set consist of a central brooch (have to pin using hairpins), 2 side brooches and 2 floral pins with strands of beads (unfortunately 1 of the pins went missing)

Butterfly brooch made with mix of sequins and beads, inspired by what Li Li wore for Madam White Snake.

One of my most elaborate set, with one big central phoenix and 2 floral brooches with strands of beads.

Another elaborate set, but only 1 single piece. Looks a bit like street Teochew opera style.

A work-in-progress; hair accessories permantly fixed onto toupee made of wool.

A side phoenix made of sequins; originally planned to make it part of a complete set for "datou", but the rest of the elements are too difficult to reproduce, so this has become like a stand-alone piece.

5 comments:

DaRonn said...

Your hair acessories not bad...They are quite nice..esp the pink one.

One Qn: For your sequin do you tie them on one by one?

A.C. said...

Thanks for your compliment! Which pink one are you referring to, the 3 piece phoenix one or the one attached to toupee?

Yes I tie the sequin by hand using wire. It is relatively simply, just need another thinner wire to coil around the frame wire, and with each coil you slot in one sequin lor.

Miko said...

wa, AC also multi-talented wor!

Dennipep said...

I love your butterfly brooch, very pretty!

Yun said...

Hi!
I really like your pieces!
I was wondering - hat type of wire do you use? The few times I've attempted to make hair pieces, the ones small enough to fit seed beads are too soft and they droop under the weight of the beads, and the strong enough wires can't fit into the beads. >.< Do you have any advice?