This document analyzes the image and style of several popular young female artists, including Rachel Platten, Jess Glynne, Demi Lovato, and Little Mix. For each artist, it describes elements of their appearance in music videos like clothing, hair, makeup, and accessories. It notes trends like casual, fashionable styles for Platten and urban/hip-hop influences for Glynne. The document recommends choosing a laidback, unique yet fashionable style for a new artist, emphasizing natural hair and makeup with one bold accessory.

1. Artist development research

2. Looking at this list of the top 15
singles in the chart on the week
of the 4th September, its easy to
see that while the charts do seem
heavily male-dominated, there
are many young female artists
with popular singles including
Rachel Platten, Jess Glynne, Demi
Lovato and Little Mix. These
artists are obviously popular for a
reason, and part of that reason is
the artist/group’s image.

3. Rachel Platten
Platten’s single, Fight Song, is currently
no.3 in the UK. Her image appears to be
fairly natural. This is reflected in the
music video for the song, where her
clothing is fashionable with an edge.
Various
shots of
her writing
in a
notebook
show she is
wearing big
rings.
Here she is
seen wearing
a basic t-shirt.

4. Her hair in the video is shot
with tousled waves, a style
popular right now & seen on
other artists and famous
young women right now.
In the video she
wears basic
clothing but
accessorizes too
with hats,
necklaces and
other jewelry.
Throughout the whole video she wears laid-back,
unsophisticated clothing that is reminiscent of day-
to-day fashion. This is something to consider when
we plan our artist’s clothing for our music video
because I think it works well in making the artist
relatable. Not only this, but it will make it easier for
us to find the clothing, which will be a benefit.

5. Jess Glynne
Glynne’s song ‘Don’t be so Hard
on Yourself’ is currently no.5 on
the UK chart, which her image
appearing to be heavily hip-hop
influenced. This is seen in the
music video for the song, as well
as other music videos she had
performed in.
In the video
for Don’t be
so Hard on
Yourself, her
hair is natural
and tied in
simple styles.

6. Her eye makeup
is fairly
elaborate, but in
neutral tones
that suit her
face.
Similarly as with the Platten video, Glynne
wears clothing that is fashionable, however
with an urban edge to match her image, and
could be found in highstreet shops by fans.
In the video she
also
accessorizes
with
rings/bracelets
and necklaces.
Glynne’s urban style is also seen in
Tinie Tempah’s video for Not Letting
Go.
Glynne’s whole image shows
her as a ‘trendy’ and
fashionable young artist with
urban/hip-hop influences. Her
natural and bright hair stands
out, making her look unusual,
which is something we should
consider with our artist.

7. Demi Lovato Lovato’s song ‘Cool for the Summer’ is currently
no.7 on the UK chart. Her image generally is
heavily rock/punk influenced, which can be seen in
this music video.
In the video, Lovato wears heavy makeup.

8. Her tattoos are
visible in this video,
which accentuates
the ‘rock’ style she
has.
The outfits are
mostly made up
of underwear
paired with
jackets/skirts.
She also
accessorizes
with long
earrings
which
contrast her
shorter hair.
She is seen
here wearing
a leather-style
body suit with
fishnet boots,
which gives
her a sultry
edge.
Demi’s style in this video isn’t really
what we’re looking to apply to our
own video. Really, we want a
contemporary style with a clear
unique edge, whereas in this video she
fits the conventions of being typically
‘rock’ or edgy. Despite this, I think the
fact we could see her tattoos did show
her individuality, which would be
something for us to consider to
perhaps highlight our artist’s creative
individuality too.

9. Little Mix Little Mix’s song ‘Black Magic’ is currently no.11
on the UK chart. And each band member seems
to have their own individual style.
As the video for this song
has a narrative story, the
girls in the group go through
a ‘transformation’ where
their clothing changes and
they become more typically
fashionable.
Their makeup in the video is
light and natural looking.
Some of the outfits
appear to have a
bohemian influence
that is reminiscent of
festivals etc.

10. The members of the group are also
accessorized, wearing rings,
bracelets and hair accessories that
are eye-catching.
The members all have natural hair
styles in long length which adds
symmetry to them as a group.
The similar colours that each member is
wearing stops them from clashing
together, which the similar styles of
clothing show they’re together.
I think that the target audience for this video is pre-
teen girls, as the storyline is quite basic. I think this
is reflected in the image choice of the band, as I
think their style is likely to be attractive to younger
girls. The colours are fairly bright and typically
‘pop’, which isn’t what we’re looking for. However,
again, I thought that the use of accessories and
light makeup worked very well and so will definitely
consider that when making decisions for our video.

11. Looking at other popular young female
celebrities right now, its clear that there
are some day-to-day style trends popular
that we could use in our music video to
make our artist appealing to our target
audience, as we want our artist to look
laidback and comfortable in her
surroundings. If we chose to have our
artist dressed in this way, it would be easy
to create costumes as all items would be
day to day things.

12. Looking at hairstyle trends for 2015, messy,
simplistic styles in natural colour seem to be
popular. Although we want our artist to look unique,
by styling her hair in a fashionable way, such as
these images, would make her more appealing to
the fashion conscious target audience. This type of
style would also be easy to achieve as they are low-
intensity in styling and also look edgy, which would
naturally add to the artist’s image. Ideally, we would
like our artist to have fairly long hair as we feel that
is more eye-catching and so will make our artist’s
image more memorable.

13. Makeup wise, I think we want to keep it fairly
natural but give our artist a statement look,
such as bold eyeliner/lip colour or using
jewels etc. Because we want our artist to look
unusual and ahead of fashion, we should
avoid the typical popular styles right now,
such as heavy contouring (as seen in the
picture on the …), and I feel we should focus
on having one specific statement thing &
keeping everything else natural.