ClAIRE- DAISY’S
Claire
Claire wasn't just a model for us — she was a stylist in her own right, a colleague at Daisy's who also modelled and was published in magazine work alongside everything else she did. She worked stage at Salon International in London too, for the American company, the year we all went together as a team.
The image with the painted eyebrows, the little stars, and the warm, laughing expression is the real one — genuinely one of the loveliest, most natural shots from that era. Pure blonde pixie crop, cropped close and textured, with that playful, slightly theatrical makeup that was very much part of the look at the time.
To me, Claire always had a touch of Billy Piper about her — that same look. Very petite, small frame, taller than me but still tiny, and a genuinely pretty face. As a person she was quiet — not loud, not one to make a fool of herself, quite feminine in how she carried herself. My instinct is she preferred her hair longer, and I'd put money on it being long now, if I saw her.
Some of the other images here have been touched up — background swapped, restyled into plain white clothing. That was partly an experiment on my own part. My honest, subjective view, having looked back at a lot of this work, is that hair generally reads best against a plain background — light usually works better than busy, and plain clothing in something like white, black, or navy tends to let the hair and the face do the talking rather than competing with everything around them. It's not a hard rule — plenty of great avant-garde work leans into elaborate staging rather than away from it — but it's what I noticed looking back at these.
The leopard print background is a good example. It looked fantastic — genuinely striking, and it gave the whole thing a sixties-into-seventies feel, which, having checked, is roughly right: leopard print really took off in the sixties before picking up a rockier, more rebellious edge through the seventies and into punk. It worked well for Bronze Plane© — Madeline and Ryan's shoot, with those caramel and darker bibbed textures running through. But on Claire, it ended up too busy. Her hair and her face, which were the whole point, got a bit lost in it.
We were still learning at the time — genuinely amateur in the nicest sense, finding our way through what worked and what didn't.
Claire and Joanne Cutts eventually went off and set up their own salon business together. I haven't seen her since, pretty much from around the time she left — but wishing her well, wherever she is.
Photo software used to clarify and, in some images, restyle the presentation. Hair, cut and colour are unaltered from the original work.Claire in pink featured in the National magazines all of those years ago.
