The Release of Gang Girls

Shana Swash in Gang Girls. Photography Scott Chalmers. Hair & Make-up Vintage Hair Lounge

When it came it was like Christmas! Gang Girls release at midnight on 17 May 2011, just 37 days after the Southampton film shoot was a triumph. Many of our cast, crew and Facebook followers woke up to see the finished article as if they were finding that Santa had left them an extra lovely present in their inbox this year.

Andy Wilks, Chair of Isle of Wight Film Network did an amazing job on the edit and grade, no mean feat, when despite the whole shoot lasting just 4 hours, we'd actually shot over an hour's worth of high definition colour and black & white footage in that time in 4 different Southampton waterfront locations. It needed to be cut down to under 3 minutes to sync with the wonderful new recording of Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) by Miss Annie of The Regular Joes and The Kitty Kat Cabaret Club in Bournemouth. And it took our most celebrated Cassie Leedham just 40 minutes to design the iconic film logo and send it to Andy to be added to the ongoing film edit.

So without wasting any more time, cast your eyes over Gang Girls......

Thanks to all the scooter clubs involved and Victory Wheelers for the splendid cars; all our cast and contributors are credited in the film, and of course there are many more supporters that helped us make this happen.

Pat Murphy in Gang Girls. Photography Scott Chalmers

And a bit of insider information, it is true that our lead actor Shana Swash now has a mum who can't get the song Bang Bang out of her head! So a special thanks to all the wonderful mums who have supported their daughters throughout this production. We couldn't have done it without you.

News on Gang Girls can be found in regular updates at www.facebook.com/ganggirlsfilm and www.twitter.com/ganggirlsfilm.


 

Revolution Magazine launches with a Vintage flavour

Lauren Fernandez on front cover of Revolution. Photography Scott Chalmers. Hair & Make-up Vintage Hair Lounge

Here's something fun to get your teeth into. Brand new style magazine Revolution has launched and can be read at

http://issuu.com/ahnomoly/docs/rev-isu1

Lauren Fernandez in Revolution. Photography Scott Chalmers. Hair & Make-up Vintage Hair Lounge

 

Lauren Fernandez in Revolution. Photography Scott Chalmers. Hair & Make-up Vintage Hair Lounge

 

 

 

 

 

Lauren Fernandez in Revolution. Photography Scott Chalmers. Hair & Make-up Vintage Hair Lounge

 

 

 

 

 

Vintage Hair Lounge Create Gang Girls

Maddy Hobbs. Photography by Scott Chalmers

The 10th April 2011 was an extremely sunny day in Southampton, the day on which Gang Girls was shot. Unit base was our High Street salon Vintage Hair Lounge and from 8.30am we were all hands on deck to create the hair and make-up looks for our retro girl gang played by Shana Swash, Maddy Hobbs and Chloe Cruse.

With Classy Chassis clothing taking care of the costume, with some great accessories provided by London film Costume Designer Andrew Joslin, weeks of concept design went swiftly in to action, with the key inspiration for the looks from Nancy Sinatra, Twiggy and Brigitte Bardot.

Gloria Holloway and Julia Jones work on hair for Maddy Hobbs. Photography by Scott Chalmers

Gloria Holloway and Julia Jones work on hair for Maddy Hobbs. Photography by Scott Chalmers

Once our photographer Scott Chalmers arrived to do some shots in Southampton's Oxford Street before the main event, we welcomed the arrival of the delightful Shana Swash and fifty scooters that caused quite a stir pitching up outside the salon ready to start the shoot.

Sharon Holloway works on make-up for Shana Swash. Photography by Scott Chalmers

Sharon Holloway works on make-up for Shana Swash. Photography by Scott Chalmers

By 12 noon we were ready to set up for the first shots in the nearby French Quarter City Walls. This is where the film opens and we see the Shana's gang awaiting the arrival of her new scooter followers.

In an extraordinary feat of organisation and enthusiasm, and notwithstanding the baking sun, we quickly moved on to the Red Funnel terminal outside Kuti's Royal Thai Pier before finishing the afternoon in the Town Quay car park, which stretches out in to Southampton's River Test, a great sea front backdrop which didn't disappoint. We wrapped the shoot at 4.30pm. In just 4 hours Vintage Hair Lounge had made a film!

The arrival of Shana Swash, Maddy Hobbs and Chloe Cruse in Gang Girls. Photography by Scott Chalmers

Gang Girls is due for release in May 2011. More updates soon.

How Cassie Leedham created the Vintage Hair Lounge brand

Another triumph from Cassie Leedham from www.goodshowstudio.com - our men's grooming range 

On the eve of the launch of the Vintage Hair Lounge website, it's worth making a tribute to the vastly talented Cassie Leedham from the Good Show Studio whose tireless work and creativity has been the signature of this inspired business.

The working relationship began with Cassie as far back as 2007 in developing a brand identity for our sister company Archive TV, a forward thinking historical film production company, launched in 2008 with the double international award winning film The Crime Wave starring Shana Swash, Sarah Matravers, Samantha Seager, Frankie Fitzgerald, Tat Whalley, Tim Wallers and James Wilson.

Archive TV launches The Crime Wave with designs by Cassie Leedham

Once the idea was crystallising that the future of hairdressing was in vintage, there couldn't have been anyone more enthusiastic to take on the brief than Cassie. Unlike a lot of small start-up businesses, we didn't reach for the DIY photoshop fonts, we did our research, we created a thorough business plan and concept and from that we began to work with images and influences that showed Vintage Hair Lounge visually. From this preparatory work, Cassie developed a set of 6 moodboards from which further planning and implementation could develop.

One of the Cassie moodboards used by Vintage Hair Lounge

Whilst the French Quarter salon was underway with design, the logo was finalised and transformed into brass signage for the salon exterior.

Cassie's Vintage Hair Lounge Logo created in brass signage

The last stage in the salon launch, originally planned for February 2010 was the creation of an eye-catching invitation for a whole "Launch Week". Over a hundred went out by email, and the invitation also featured in Besame Cosmetics newsletter, but despite the fantastic response, tragedy hit. The salon fitters, Newton Latimer, walked off site the day before completion, leaving a pile of rubble and our fledgling business tens of thousands of pounds out of pocket. The launch was cancelled, the police were contacted, and for those who know a little more of the Vintage Hair Lounge story, you will be familiar with the further tragedy that beset us when Southampton Police not only refused to listen or act but violently assaulted us instead. (The Independent Police Complaints Commission has just upheld part of Sharon's appeal complaint for the way she was horrendously treated in custody despite being a victim of crime).

Cassie's launch invitation for the event which tragically never happened

All our own, and Cassie's, hard work appeared to collapsed in disaster and disappointment, but an opportunity to take a temporary unit at Southampton's Bargate Centre was snapped up, so at least we had a base, we could get meeting people and the concept of Vintage Hair Lounge "on location" was born! More work from Cassie sealed the progress - a stylish location banner and an iconic "Keep Calm and Carry On" promotional poster that began to pop up across the city; a defiant celebration of all we had achieved despite Newton Latimer and Hampshire Police.

Vintage Hair Lounge on location banner designed by Cassie

Cassie features in her own Keep Calm design - launching the temporary Vintage Hair Lounge salon 2010

Whilst finding our feet at the Bargate, Cassie had one more trick up her sleeve, in the design of new "Rebel" flyers to promote our men's services!

Cassie's men's promotion in conjunction with Men-U products

So come October 2010, thanks to local shopfitters KJ Parker, the French Quarter salon finally opened, and although we still had plenty to do, we were delighted when two of our favourites clients, Vikki and Roly, whose vintage wedding we had styled in the summer, gave us permission to use their wedding photograph for another Cassie promotion. The advertisement was created for Best of British magazine and features in much of the Vintage Hair Lounge online and print promotion.

The wedding of Vikki and Roly becomes Cassie's signature advertisement

Well with all that you'd think we'd let Cassie put her feet up! Not at all, as Christmas was coming and gift vouchers beckoned....

Vintage Hair Lounge Gift Vouchers with gold leaf by Cassie

 

And there was one more project to complete before the year was out. And that was to create a new promotional poster for the short film Fish!, recently screened in our salon, that would highlight some of the best work we've done in the past year - the creation of an iconic film retro mermaid using Dome monofibre and prolin hair enhancers to make seaweed inspired bespoke hair extensions, and Besame vintage cosmetics, all of which we stock and use in our salon. The beautiful stills photography by Christian Black features in the poster.

Francesca Brown as The Mermaid in Fish! Poster design by Cassie Leedham

Since Christmas, we have been working closely with Cassie and her other half, Ed Lewis, at the Good Show Studio on the new website and Monday 18 April is launch date! Cassie's original designs for our own brand men's grooming products managed to be squeezed in between the web work, and there are a few more projects up our sleeves for the summer!

So a huge heartfelt thankyou, Cassie Leedham for four years of outstanding design work for us, may there be many more terrific years to come.

Cassie Leedham can be contacted at hello@goodshowstudio.com, (01455) 636 171 www.goodshowstudio.com

Shana Swash in Gang Girls : Quadrophenia meets Grease

Shana Swash in Gang Girls by Sharon Holloway. Photography by Scott Chalmers

With the heat soaring in Southampton today, everybody poured out on to the waterfront to soak up some much overdue sunshine. But it's not just Brighton that's seen a history of mods and rockers making the news. Vintage Hair Lounge was today the focus of an ambitious outing of mine, Sharon Holloway, to make a film in one day with a big slice of the South's retro talent.

What was originally an idea initiated by Classy Chassis Clothing to launch a new collection of sixties clothing for streetwise youth, ultimately turned in to an epic film production with mods, scooter enthuiasists, rockabillies, retro gals and classic cars pouring in to the City to meet at Vintage Hair Lounge and recreate the classic cult confrontation with a twist.

With former EastEnders actress Shana Swash fronting our retro girl gang we were in for something truly special. With charm, grit and grace, she took on the role, as Rizzo in Grease would say, "with relish!" And her exquisite performance exuded a magnetism that was undoubtedly proved by the unexpectedly huge turn out of scooter and classic car enthusiasts and the warmth with which she was received by all who played a part in the production.

Maddy Hobbs, Shana Swash and Chloe Cruse in Gang Girls by Sharon Holloway. Photography by Scott Chalmers

So it's a fitting tribute to both Shana and the South's retro and vintage scene, that the beautiful photography of the day by Scott Chalmers will also be featured on film. Gang Girls now goes straight in to post-production and more news will be posted soon.

We are also delighted to announce that Annie Young of Bournemouth's Kitty Kat Cabaret Club, who features in Gang Girls with her burlesque troupe as "The Rockers" will be performing the soundtrack.

More updates to follow.

Why Collette Von Tora is Pure Theatre

Collette Von Tora as The Emcee, Hair and Make-up by Sharon Holloway at Vintage Hair Lounge

This weekend I met Bizarre Magazine's Ultra Vixens Winner Collette Von Tora for a Cabaret inspired photoshoot with Southampton local boy  Scott Chalmers, an extraordinary photographer with an eye for the edgy, the theatrical and the sumptous. When Scott first asked me to step in as hair and make-up artist, I wasted no time to get researching the brief. Collette was to be transformed in to The Emcee, John Santos style as per the Cabaret stage production.

John Santos as The Emcee

That in itself required a trawl through YouTube for clandestine footage of John in action. But, in true Scott style, there was a great deal more to be done, because Collette was also going to take on Liza Minnelli's Sally Bowles, in a latex replica of the classic costume. So out came the Cabaret DVD and I watched and I watched and I freeze-framed and I freeze-framed, and finally the make-up was seared in to my mind.

Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles

A full day out of the Vintage Hair Lounge salon was set aside to pitch up in Southampton studios and get to work on a truly spectacular project. Collette was unrelenting in her enthusiasm, her professionalism and her complete ease with the brief and the roles to perform. I could instantly understand how she had inspired Scott, and Scott in return, had inspired her. But as hair and make-up artist, I certainly didn't feel left out, it was a pure three-way creative collaboration throughout which none of us lost any excitement in what we were doing. Collette, regularly described as an alternative fashion model, has a constant stream of intelligently articulated creative ideas and if that's what makes her "alternative" I applaud it and want more of it! More used to working with film actors than fashion models, I have always been more intrigued by their work of creating a character and performing, but Collette's approach to her work falls completely in to that category.

Collette Von Tora as Sally Bowles, Hair and Make-up by Sharon Holloway at Vintage Hair Lounge

It is anticipated that more of this wonderful photo collection will soon be adorning the walls at Vintage Hair Lounge, 118 High Street, Southampton SO14 2AA as an enduring reminder of the power of the silver screen and the big stage to inspire over and over again.

See our retro-pin up mermaid in the Fish! Film Trailer

Photography by Christian Black at www.christianblack.com and Poster designed by Cassie Leedham at www.goodshowstudio.com

First taster of the finished film can now be viewed in the online trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/wab/vi4167014937/.

Friends of Bettie, who've seen the film in full, are over the moon with ecstatic delight about how good it is, and just swoon with pride every time the gorgeous Francesca Brown (The Girl) appears on screen.

Definitely worth a look!