Hair and makeup designer, Abi Lawrence, discusses her experience of working on Sorority, the looks she designed for the cast and the challenges she faced on set.
What drew you to Sorority?
The first time I read the script I just knew I had to work on it. I only had a couple of features under my belt at the time and I knew it would be a massive challenge, but I was just so drawn to the story. I’m lucky enough to have four sisters myself, and the relationship between Harriet and Sarah really reminded me of myself and my older sister. When I met James and Sophie for the first time I could see they had such a passion for the project which was so infectious.
How did you prep for the project?
Well I started with a thorough script breakdown, picking out any challenging moments in terms of hair and makeup as well as getting a feel for each of the separate characters, their personalities and relationships with each other to get an idea on how they might look and in turn how that would translate in their hair and makeup. From there I designed the looks for the principal cast as well as the overall look for the larger scenes like the party. Unfortunately there wasn’t time for a hair and makeup fitting, but luckily this wasn’t an issue, at my initial meeting with James I felt I got a pretty clear idea on the look he envisioned for his cast and working with a contemporary script also kept things pretty straight forward.
Talk about the different looks the characters have in the film.
So we always felt there should be a contrast between Harriet and Sarah, they have quite different personalities and I wanted to reflect that in their hair and makeup. Harriet is tougher and more worldly so we showed this with her messy hair, dark eye makeup and generally tougher look. Sarah being younger, and generally quieter, had a much softer look. I didn’t feel like she would wear a lot of makeup day to day, so we kept her pretty natural, apart from the party scene, for this we curled her hair (so much hair – took me hours haha!) and added some touches of glitter with a winged eyeliner. I wanted something that reflected this moment that Sarah is inhabiting, a moment between childhood and adulthood. She’s taking on the dark eyeliner of her mother and sister, but given it her own playful touch of glitter and, unlike Val and Harriet’s more undone look, Sarah’s eyeliner is sharp wing.
I also wanted to imply the tension between Harriet and her mother Val, so we mirrored the dark eyeliner between the two women, I like to imagine its something Harriet learnt from watching her mother do her makeup as a young child, something she’s probably forgotten and no longer aware of. But as much as she tries to cut the ties between herself and Val, these links remain, and perhaps she’s more like her mother than she cares to admit.