A Richmond-based makeup and hair artist and a pair of Kwantlen fashion alumni are talented locals participating in this year’s Vancouver Fashion Week.
The week kicks of Monday, bringing seven nights of high-fashion to downtown Vancouver.
Richmond artist leads makeup team
Richmond resident Sandy (Ting Ting) Na is a key makeup artist for the week, who will be scheduling and organizing all 65 artists involved. She’s already chosen products from makeup sponsors and liaised with designers to help them decide on a makeup look that will complement their clothes.
“Their design is more important because it's a fashion show,” she said. “So as makeup, we just back up and want to balance. They’re our first priority.”
Na works full-time as a flight attendant for Air Canada, but five years ago decided to follow her passion and got certified as a professional makeup artist. Now, she schedules her flights around hair and makeup gigs for weddings, photoshoots and other events.
“Most of the weddings, my clients want a natural look. So that's why I like to do fashion shows, because with fashion shows we're more creative. There's more colour, more pigment to apply,” she said.
Fashion shows make great classrooms for makeup artists, she said, because you learn about on-trend looks and learn to apply clients’ makeup faster by practicing getting models ready for the runway.
Na has dreams of one day releasing her own line of makeup and skin care products. But this week, you’ll find her backstage making sure all the show’s models have a consistent look.
Blood Moon makes runway debut
Effy and Raine Southard, twin 24-year-old sisters from Delta, are the masterminds behind the minimalistic gothic label Blood Moon that will be seen on the catwalk Wednesday.
“We’re pretty excited. We’ve been dreaming of it since we were 12 years old,” said Raine.
Both attended Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s fashion program at the Richmond campus, where they streamlined their ideas and learned about the industry.
They describe their pieces as alternative, and they’re proud to be in the “slow fashion” business, the opposite of “fast fashion” brands like Forever 21.
The twins describe themselves as quiet, and say they like communicating through their designs.
“It’s just a way to express our point of view,” Effy said. “We’ve just always loved creating things.”
In future, the Southards have aspirations to expand beyond their clothing, swimwear and jewellery offerings into menswear and create styles for diverse body types.
The Southards say faith is important to them, and chose the name Blood Moon because they like the imagery in following Bible passage:
“The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Vancouver Fashion Week kicks off March 18, and runs through to March 24.
