WIGFX wigs have been used in a great many situations, from plays
and opera to fancy dress parties. Here are a sample of what can
be achieved with a WIGFX wig:
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Wigs by WigFX
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Miss Japan 2009
Queen of the Whole Universe (QWU) 2009
Wigs: WigFX Photography: High-Light Photographics
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Annette Beaney (WigFX)
Backstage Wellington QWU 2009
Photography: High-light Photographics
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NBR New Zealand Opera
Italian Girl in Algiers 2009 season
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NBR New Zealand Opera
Italian Girl in Algiers 2009 season
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NBR New Zealand Opera
Italian Girl in Algiers 2009 season
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NBR New Zealand Opera
Italian Girl in Algiers 2009 season
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Helen aka Dame Edna Everidge
Wig supplied by WigFX
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"Buffy and Bimbo"
and Annette Beaney
Erotica Expo, 2008
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"Eugene Onegin"
NBR New Zealand Opera 2009 season
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"Italian Girl
in Algiers"
NBR New Zealand Opera 2009 Season
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"La Boheme"
NBR New Zealand Opera 2008
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"Jenufa"
NBR New Zealand Opera 2008
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John Watson (aka)
"Resident Alien" 2008
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18th Century Wigs supplied
by Wigfx
Makeup by Kylee Strathdee
Ad for Sky TV 2008
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18th Century Wigs supplied
by Wigfx
Makeup by Kylee Strathdee
Ad for Sky TV 2008
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18th Century Wigs supplied
by Wigfx
Makeup by Kylee Strathdee
Ad for Sky TV 2008
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"Don Pasqualle"
NBR New Zealand Opera season 2006
Wig and Beard made by Wigfx
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"Lucia di Lammermoor"
NZ Opera 2007
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"Lucia di Lammermoor"
NZ Opera 2007
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"Hatch"
Auckland Theatre Company 2007
Photography courtesy of Tony Rabbit
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"Turandot"
NZ Opera 2007
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"Bad Jelly the
Witch"
Silo Theatre
Photography courtesy of Brian Budgeon
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"Berlin"
Silo Theatre 2006
Photography courtesy John McDermott
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Lady Spy - Nancy Wake
"Kiwis at War" (2006)
Gibson Group
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Maori Exhibit
South Canterbury Museum
Timaru District Council
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"Lucia di Lammermoor"
NZ Opera 2007
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"Katherine Mansfield"
Silo Theatre 2006
Photography courtesy John McDermott
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"Betty Boop"
"Thank you for your help. You'd be pleased to know that
I was given the Best Dressed award"
Best wishes, Shareel
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"Little Britain"
Bradley Ambrose
Winner - Best Male Costume APN Xmas party 2006
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"The Dominion Post", May 6, 2009
More a soap opera.
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A new opera production to hit Wellington is abandoning staid
tradition and elaborate costumes in favour of something a
little risque bikini clad "beach babes".
The director of the NBR New Zealand Opera's production of
The Italian Girl in Algiers, which opens on Saturday, has
promised audiences the show will feature elements "never
before seen in New Zealand", including babes Kali Chote,
Megan Corby and Renee Newport.
"We're giving audiences a taste of something totally
new with this production," Colin McColl said. "Music
aside, this opera is basically a very funny sex comedy with
all the twists and turns of a daytime soap opera."
Click
here to read the full article.
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"NZ Herald", February 9, 2009
Buffy and Bimbo wearing the Carmen Wigs from the Diva Collection
at the Big Gay Out.
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Prime Minister John Key took it all in his stride at the
Big Gay Out in Auckland - the sexual references, the condom
promotions and the drag queen's offer of a massage.
"If they want to give me a massage on my right arm, which
came out of plaster yesterday, feel free," Mr Key said after
dancing on stage with queen duo Buffy and Bimbo and being
offered a massage to remember.
Click
here to read the full article.
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"Spectrum", Radio New Zealand National,
November 2, 2008
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Serious Hair for Divas
After fifteen years in the business, Annette
Beaney is a dab hand at producing theatrical wigs for many
New Zealand produced operas and big musicals. Now she’s introducing
her 'Diva Range'….special BIG hair for drag queens.
It's all a result of her wig work for
Auckland drag artistes Buffy and Bimbo. So the pair have just
been lending her a hand at a stall at the Auckland Erotica
Expo promoting the 'Diva Range'. For Spectrum, David Steemson’s
along to watch the fun. He also has quiet a time with Annette
in her studio learning about the gentle art of wiggery.
Click
here to listen to the Radio
clip [24 mins, MP3 - 8.4 Mb].
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"NZ Herald", July 8, 2008
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After 20 years of hairdressing I was offered a job in the
wig department of Phantom of the Opera in 1997 and then all
the overseas shows that came to New Zealand. Being a wig designer
is a very time-consuming, challenging occupation. It becomes
a lifestyle as you always seem to have something buzzing around
in your mind.
I do sometimes ask myself why I do it (especially when I
am halfway through making a wig and my back is breaking) but
when it is completed and you sit in the theatre and see your
work on stage, that's when I say I love what I do.
At the moment I am working on a short film called Pito by
the Okareka Dance Company which requires a 5m-long dread.
It has to attach to two separate wigs which are worn by dancers
Taane Mete and Taiaroa Royal, so it all has to stay in one
piece...
Click
here to read the full article.
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"Front Row", 2006
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The wig maketh the character; as wig-maker
and stylist Annette Beaney well knows.
Backstage at the opera house, as she helps opera singers
on with their wigs, the transformation often
takes place before her eyes.
The wig is the last piece that connects the
character’s whole look together’ she says. It transforms
the person who’s wearing it into the person they’re
trying to be. You can see it when you put the wigs on them.
Instantly, their shoulders change and all of a sudden, they
become the character. It’s quite dramatic.”
Beaney has been producing and caring for
The NBR New Zealand Opera’s wigs since the company formed
in 2000, and before that for Opera New Zealand in Auckiand.
She works on a variety of plays and musicals too, fashioning
bespoke wigs in some cases, or styling stock wigs in others.
After preparing the wigs, she is on hand at every performance
to ensure each one is safely on and looking good.
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It’s a time-consuming business. A bespoke
wig is a month’s work for Beaney, and even preparing a stock
wig for fitting to a chorus member is six to eight hours’ work.
Wigs are a massive labour-content job,”she says. You can’t
just put a wig on and comb it as you’d comb your own hair.
Because it’s a synthetic fibre, it doesn’t fall and behave
the same, so you really have to work it and mould it into where
you want it to go.”
Beaney, however, has flair and commitment in abundance
for the task. A hairdresser for 20 years, she happened on a wig-dressing
job as pact of a visiting production of The Phantom of the Opera
some years ago, and it evolved from there. Her business WigFX specialises
in designing, making and dressing wigs for theatrical and film use.
It imports its raw materials and offers a whole range of styles
and colours, from elegant 18th century style through to beehives
and mullets. Beaney says starting the company has allowed her to
offer a much better product than was available in New Zealand when
she began in the wig business.
Many wigs that you see on the opera stage such
as the aristocratic ones from this year’s Don Giovanni —
are synthetic fibre made on a sewing machine. Some are bespoke—
made for a certain singer and often for particular dramatic effect;
human hair may be knotted strand by strand into a base of tulle
or lace.
Then there’s facial hair, also one of Beaney’s
skills. It’s quite challenging because, not being a man, it’s
difficult to understand what it’s like to wear a beard or sideburns
or a moustache. You really have to be aware of growth patterns on
the face and how the hair lies. That’s where the hairdressing
training comes in, because a hairdresser you get to know all kinds
of patterns of growth.”
The key with facial hair, as with a wig, is that
has to look as if it belongs to the person, she says. She achieved
this aim remarkably with the wig Michael Lewis wore in the title
role of Rigoletto in 2004. That was a lace-based baic wig with another
sprouting hair at the back. The wig had to be comfortable for Lewis
throughout a performance, allowing him to sing and characterise.
It also had to be durable enough to last for both the Wellington
and Auckland seasons.
Another of Beaney’s favourite wigs and unforgettable
for anyone who saw it — was a Marge Simpson-height concoction
that Helen Medlyn wore as Mistress Quickly in 2001’s Falstaff.
"Achieving comfort and stability with such a creation was quite
a challenge”, Beaney says.
And what happens to all those wigs after a production
finishes? Beaney pulls each of the stock ones apart, washes it and
stores it — a two-hour job for each wig. Then, unless they’ve
become too worn out, they have another life in another production,
restyled and re-dressed to create yet another of opera’s characters.
"The Aucklander", 2005:
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Opera's topknots must have top knotch
care
There's more to a fake hairdo than meets
the eye. Just ask Annette Beaney, Auckland's wigmaker extraordinaire.
Alice Hudson reports
Backstage at the Auckland's Herald Theatre,
Annette Beaney sits among well-coiffed heads on tabletops,
rain lashing relentlessly outside.
Some of the wetness is leaking into the "hair
room" for NZ Opera's Don Giovanni and Annette keeps a
mop and bucket nearby.
The full-time wig designer's all about making
sure that 70 "dos" for the opera are kept in top
shape - "they are the icing on the cake", she says
of the Mozart's visual and musical feast. "Wigs are hard
work and so time consuming", she says, although you know
that after 12 years in the business, Annette loves it.
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It can take the former hairdresser a full month to make a wig from
scratch using blended colours, and each character requires about
eight hours of fittings. Add alterations, four hours' maintenance-time
before each performance and the task of knotting individual hairs
through lace to create realistic scalp-lines, and you have a serious
wig commitment on Annette's part.
"It all comes back to when you first see the cast up on stage
on opening night . It makes the heartache worthwhile," says
the Drury woman, who describes her job as a "lifestyle".
A lifestyle she "fell into" with the opportunity to help
out in the wig department when Cameron MacIntosh's Phantom of the
Opera toured here.
"There is no training or schools for wig people. I was lucky
those on the production were willing to impart their knowledge."
Australian tours have followed, and countless productions and hairstyles.
Annette's now firmly immersed in the showbiz life and has established
her own company, WigFX.
"I love the creativity of wigs," she says. "It's
the last piece pulling the look of a character together. Imagine
what it would look like coming out on stage in an 18th century aristocratic
dress, but with normal street-hair?"
Chorus member Glenn Meade pops in backstage, showing off the wigs
she will wear for Don Giovanni. There's an elaborate up-do for aristocratic-mode
and an unkempt-looking mane for the peasant scene. Glenn who's been
performing since the age of 12, agrees a well-designed and well
set wig helps with characterisation.
"As soon as the aristocrat wig is on, the shoulders automatically
go back, the feet come together. Sometimes, a wig can be a little
heavier than the hair you are used to, but you never worry it will
fall off. That's the aim - to not notice it's there."
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