- TOYAH IMAGE -
´´I first met Toyah when I was called on do a magazine feature on women pop stars´´ aays Pru. ´´People like Ronny, Lene Lovich, The Belle Stars. Hot gossips and Bette Bright. I must have made up a million girls, but I was struck by her. She has bright green eyes that stare at youin an almost athereal way . Her face provides the perfect canvas to work on. She´ open to new ideas. It´ gone beyond make-up now though, almost infor painting
´´The first face I did for her was an Egyptian look in amber shades complete Tutenkhamen patterns and jewels intermingled ´´
After that, we became a team, The make-up we use now involves hours of research into ethnic, cultural histories. Toyah´s fascinated by ancient tribes, so the look for the new album, The Changeling, comes from the Maori tribes in New Zealand. They were the first pepole ever to tatttoo themselves. Their make-up was very involved, very ritualistic. The symbols all mean something, and we´ve tried to copy that in the body make-up ´´
Pru and Toyah usually spend two or three days a week together. ´´Its almost a full -time job´´ says Pru. ´´Toyah has strong ideas and once one face is perfected she wants something new . I tend to spend evenings sitting here sketching new ideas then days on set making videos or tv programmes with her´´
At first people didn´t like my faces too much. They were too creative, too colourful. Toyah was on of the first people to give me a chance to open up. Make-up came into it´ own with punk in 1977. Before that everyone wanted to look natural, which I didn´t like. Now people have patterned faces and mohican haircuts and no one even notices them´´