Alex Box Research

Alex Box is a makeup artist in the fashion industry. She was the creative director of makeup brand Illamasqua and helped build and promote the brand to become how big and well known it is today. She recently announced that she would be leaving the company at the end of this year to move on to different things. Her creations are known for being very out there and dramatic and she creates looks like you have never seen before and is probably best known for her colourful and wacky line work.

Her work has been featured in magazines such as Dazed & Confused, i-D and Vogue. She has also created makeup looks for designers such as Chanel, Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen and in 2010, she had her own book produced which was photographed by the very famous, Rankin.

At University, in which she studied at Chelsea College of Art and Design in London, she actually studied art and later moved into makeup. When creating her designs, she likes to have a mix between art and makeup, she said 'Art and craft are symbiotic, I still have that work ethic of an artist, where it needs to be laboured, you need to see the labour of it for it to have the weight and preciousness.' Through her course, it gave her the opportunity to come up with her own original ideas and work with prosthetics.

One of my favourite quotes by her is this one 'It hones my feeling about how you can actually change and manipulate the face and it was just like my painting, only in this case the canvas is alive.' I like how she describes makeup as a form of art as if you creating a painting but instead of a canvas, you are applying it to a person's face. When I think about all the ways you can temporarily change and manipulate the face by just using a few products, it makes me want to experiment so much more and come up with my own unique and original ideas.

To gain inspiration for her ideas, she not only looks at things that are fashion related but also at science, nature, magic and technology.

She is my favourite makeup artist that I have come across so far, she is unlike any other one that I have found and her attitude and passion towards makeup and cosmetics makes me want to push myself further to be in a position where she is now. I would like to work in the fashion side of makeup, working for high fashion brands and on catwalks by coming up with my own ideas and designs and being as creative as I can.

Below are my five favourite images of her work, each one is completely different and has a different look and story behind it.

This design was for an Illamasqua collection. I really like the perfect line work on the model's face, especially the eyebrows and eyeliner. To add a pop of colour, Alex has gone for a monochromatic look of using different shades of pink on the lips and cheeks. 

This is another image from an Illamasqua collection. This is my favourite look that Alex has ever created. One of my favourite films is Alice in Wonderland and this look kind of reminds me of a character that would be in the movie. She has gone for quite a blocked look by having thick, black eyebrows, white foundation and bright red lips. I would say this look is monochromatic as it contains colours of red, peach and pink.




This image reminds me of an Andy Warhol pop art image. The look is opposite to a monochromatic design as it contains a variety of different colours with the main colour being blue. I like the idea of using colour to contour as it makes the face look more vibrant.

This image is slightly similar to the previous one as it shows a dramatic contouring with colour design but it is different in that the colour combination would show a monochromatic look as it shows shades of purples and blues. I like how her hair also contains the same colours as on her face.

As I said previously, Alex is best known for her perfect line work and this image shows this perfectly. She has created a half white and half black face and then using the opposite colour on each side of the face, she has created swirls in different shapes. Because the face is all black and white, Alex has placed a bright red lipstick onto the lips.

Sources:

http://www.businessoffashion.com/community/people/alex-box

http://thealexbox.com