Jackie
12 June 1982
She’s Got Designs On You!
Some of the most stylish-looking people around don’t find their clothes in the High Street stores. Jill Bryson designs and makes everything she wears – and we think her clothes are some of the brightest and most colourful we’ve seen in a long time.
Jill (on the right) plus fourteen-year-old Jackie reader Gaynor who’s a great fan of Jill’s individual style.
Jill Bryson is a third-year student at art school, studying Mural Design. She’s very interested in fashion and hopes to set up her own business when she leaves college. When she’s not making dresses, she plays lead guitar in an all-girl band called Strawberry Switchblade.
Jill’s devised her own unique style of dressing and make-up which she’s worn for the past few years. She says it’s the total look that’s important – which is why her hair and make-up are planned to go with whichever outfit she’s wearing.
Her favourite passion is anything spotty or bright – whatever else she may be wearing, you’ll usually find a few spotted items about her person, whether it’s gloves or socks or a scarf knotted at her neck.
Jill’s only 5ft 2in and is well aware of the problems people of less than model proportions have finding clothes to fit them properly, which is one of the reasons why she makes all her own clothes herself – at least that way she can be sure she gets something to fit!
She loves experimenting with different fabrics and colours. Her favourites are really bright colours that clash – vivid emerald green with shocking pink, bright orange with bright red. The more startling the better!
‘Accessories are really important,’ says Jill. ‘If you’ve got the wrong earrings with the wrong dress, you might as well not bother!’ which s why everything always matches in any of her outfits – from shoes to gloves to earrings!
Making your own clothes is great if you don’t have a lot of spare money to spend – it can also be fun if you use your imagination.
Jill’s designs use a lot of fabrics which weren’t intended for wearing – this bright patterned dress is made out of nursery print curtain material – but we’re not suggesting that you rip down the curtains to make yourself one! Have a good look round the soft-furnishing fabric departments for ideas – you may spot something which was originally intended for something else, like chair covering material, and make a really stylish-looking top out of it.
Jill’s make-up is all her own idea – it’s a very stark, dramatic look which goes perfectly with her style of dressing.
She always starts off with a smooth white base – Jill uses white theatrical make-up – and she never uses blusher which means that her eyes and lips really stand out.
She wears a lot of black kohl on her eyebrows and underneath the eyes, with a real powder blusher on the brow bones and gold powder on the eyelids.
The lips are well defined and dramatic – so she always applies lip colour with a brush and outlines the lips first using a lip pencil in a contrasting colour.
Jill’s designed a pattern specially for Jackie readers, so look out for it soon!