September 9, 2025

A Brush with Colour

In creating great images it’s all about partnerships and balance. Beauty and colour, beauty and the clothes, makeup and the model, makeup, and the model’s hair. In these images you can witness the results of perfect balance in colour, beauty, and the model, from the glow of the skin to the cloud of hair, to the surfaces and textures of the pieces.

Left; Top: J. Salinas, Necklace: Stylist Own, Right; Top: J. Salinas

Yet, above all it is the colour and how it speaks to us, not of vulgar brights, but of painterly strokes of intensity and saturation, like tropical blossoms or a Gauguin painting. The eyelids painted in chrome yellow, the combination of deep azure blue and lacquer red, or the intense vibrant green of jungle foliage.

It has a direct creative link to Fauvism in painting and the influence of Africa and the tropics on this brief, but wonderful explosion of artists at the dawn of the twentieth century.

Left; Top: J Salinas, Skirt: Versace, Gloves: Versace, Stockings: Wolford, Right; Top: J Salinas, Necklace Stylist Own, Stockings: Wolford

Fashion is never created in a vacuum or isolation, and these images lift our spirits in challenging times, the contrast between crunchy silken crochet and stiff pleating, the sheen of leather or the semi transparency of deep rose-pink ruffles all speak of optimism of escapism and of bold beauty.

There is a fearlessness to these images and at the same time a tenderness, with the conversation between the model and the team, and her gaze to us, the viewer, saying “isn’t this bold and beautiful?”

Above; Top: Silkologie, Jewellery: Stylists Own

There is a timelessness here, a view of beauty that offers a shimmer and glow, a cloud of hair, in fact a portrait, worthy of any amongst the Fauve painters.

Note: Fauvism is a style of painting and an art movement that emerged in France at the beginning of the 20th century. It was the style of les Fauves (the wild beasts), a group of artists whose works emphasised painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational. The style began around 1904 and continued beyond 1910, the movement lasted only a few years, 1905–1908 and had three exhibitions. The leaders were André Derain and Henri Matisse

Words by: Tony Glenville