[rhythmic electronic music]
- Hi, I'm Parma Ham.
And today I'm going to be getting ready.
I'm going to be doing
huge hair, huge makeup
and big PVC clothes.
The first step is actually
shaving the sides of my head,
which I've already done.
Then I applied moisturizer,
then I put on primer.
So without primer, everything slides.
I guess I would describe
my style as Goth-inspired.
It's fetish-inspired
and it's high fashion.
I pretty much only wear black.
So I developed my style, I
guess for the last 10 years
has been like a very slow evolution,
which has just been growing
ever since maybe the age of 12.
I guess 12 was the age when my
parents stopped dressing me.
It was quite simple, it
was just wearing black,
wearing bondage.
And then it just escalated
when I moved to London
and I met more colorful
creatures that inspired me
to go one step further.
And I think growing in confidence as well,
every passing year, I
become a bigger person.
And I do bigger hair, I do bigger looks.
I kind of feel more within
myself to be able to do that.
So I grew up in Guildford, Surrey.
It was a very conservative town.
Incredibly boring.
I remember there was one moment around 16
and I was wearing blue
jeans and a white hoodie,
and I was just running to the shops.
And I caught my reflection in the mirror
and I was so horrified at what I saw
that I vowed to never wear
something like that again,
which is interesting, 'cause it was more,
I was aware of what I didn't want to be
than what I wanted to be.
The next step is I use foundation
and I put it on a sponge,
which is damp.
Because the sponges already
damp, it actually stops
the foundation soaking into the sponge.
It creates a softer finish
with less inconsistencies
and less streaks.
So there was really no one else around me
in my hometown I could really look up to
or take any...
There was no tribe there at all.
And it was only through being online
and through Facebook and Instagram,
could I actually see that
there were other people
that are just living their
lives openly and freely.
And they always seem
to be based in London.
I was always attracted to Goths and punks.
I don't know why.
Well, Goth is very multifaceted.
There's so many different sides to it.
I was inspired by the first wave of Goths
in the late '70s, early '80s.
People like Bauhaus,
Siouxie, Virgin Prunes.
The kind of fluidity in expression,
which was regardless of
gender, there was shaved heads,
long hair, makeup.
Any conversations about
gender or sexuality,
it was almost irrelevant.
There was such sexual ambiguity.
And I aspire to be that in a way,
which is to be other, but to
also be very sexual about it
because the world is so used to binaries,
which isn't just male or female,
or top and bottom or
sub and dom, et cetera.
[chuckles]
Because we're always told
that opposites attract,
but to not really be anything,
but still be attractive
has always been the goal.
It's a difficult moment
because you're trying to
make sense of the world,
and particularly yourself.
I saw style as a way to in a
way, ignore those questions
and just start developing an identity.
And then I use a concealer
to cover some gremlin things.
When I first came to London,
I was really desperate
to find these people
that I'd seen images of
online in magazines.
Looking at it, I was a
little bit disappointed
because when you type in
"Goth", you might come up
with runway images of
Alexander McQueen or Dior.
Stunning designs and
models that are draped
in these exquisite fabrics.
And actually that was like a disconnect,
'cause that wasn't in the clubs.
That wasn't who I was seeing anywhere.
But I went to places like
Slimelight and Electrowerkz
and I found some tribe.
I found some of my chosen family, I guess.
So the next step is,
I draw a loose outline
of where I want my eye makeup to be.
It's so much more fun and
rewarding to get dressed up
and go hang out with people.
It's good to be seen, you know?
But seen amongst people that
you want to be seen with.
So that inspired me to create
my own club, which is Wraith.
I wanted to show off
the work of my friends.
I like creatives to come and feel inspired
to meet other people.
To have DJs and other performers.
We've had hosts.
I guess I was first drawn to fetish
mostly because of the liberal
environments that exists
and to have people just being themselves
and being comfortable, kind
of makes me comfortable.
I found it increasingly
difficult to exist online.
We know what would get
us banned and what won't,
but somehow we still manage to
slip through the cracks there.
In a way it censors our
work from the active canon.
It's a sad moment for
where we are in humanity,
that we've handed the keys to Zuckerberg
and these awful people.
I'm just gonna start smoking
this out and blending it.
So it's a bit softer and I'll
go over this in other colors.
Documentation, I think is vital
in these club environments
because it liberates.
And I think that liberation is important
because at the moment it's, for me,
it's obviously very
centered around London.
To not share any images to
not have any documentation,
it creates elitism that
is only for the few
and not for the many.
Not always is the collaboration
that I do with my partner, Salvia.
The project has manifested its
way in different directions.
So we did a VR project, with
a collaborator called Ulgener,
we 3-D scanned our bodies
and then adjusted them
so they're slightly more alien-like.
So it was very much
designing for an avatar.
The way we put ourselves across online
is an avatar in itself because
it's like a manipulation
or a characterization
of who we think we are.
Okay.
And now I'm just going to
blend the black a tiny bit
into the brown.
Now I sharpen the edges
with my foundation.
The foundation cuts through the blending
and creates this very straight line.
I now have a sponge with a straight edge.
I'm just gonna slowly blend that on a bit.
I have a degree of responsibility
to what I've been doing.
When I was growing up there
wasn't really any kind of
role models or anyone else saying
it's okay not to pick a
gender or pick a sexuality.
There are figures like
Pete Burns or Boy George,
which were incredible,
but the conversation
was never really there.
Maybe they possibly started
it in their own way.
There is a bit of sadness
because there is a
intergenerational conflict,
even though I feel like
they led the way in being themselves.
One by one, they've all come
out with transphobic terms.
I'm optimistic that the next generation
are gonna grow up in a time
where things are a lot easier
and the kind of language
and discourse is already out there.
Okay, now I've finished
my eye, so I'm going to
do my contour now, which
is on my cheeks and my jaw.
I squeeze the brush head,
so it's kind of flat.
It goes to loosely from the top of my ear
in the direction of my lips.
Then I'm going to do my lips.
I've gone for brown
because it matches my eye.
Okay, so my face is done
and I'm going to start doing my hair.
It's a long process that
takes around two hours,
so I'm only going to be
showing you a small part of it.
But it's the same process just repeated.
And go in to the root as far as possible.
I squeeze it and I hold
it for around 15 seconds.
I move up and do the next bit.
I definitely had a peak hair moment,
which is where I was doing,
I would be eight foot
tall with shoes and hair.
I can't really do that anymore
because hair spray formulas have changed,
that they're no longer glue-like,
so they can't really
hold huge, huge styles,
which is unfortunate.
I don't do the very end.
That's meant to be crimped.
Then it's important to spray and try
and get the roots as
much as possible as well.
I would then go to the
root and start there
and just keep going.
And that creates this texture,
which is kind of, it molds.
[chuckles]
Once it's in shape, I'm
going to use a hairdryer
to put it into shape and using the jet
of the hairdryer to shape it.
I'm going to go and finish
this and get dressed
in the other room, so
I'll be back in a minute.
[low booming electronic music]
Okay, so now I'm dressed.
I've got my PVC boots, PVC gloves,
PVC top, PVC skirt, PVC cape.
And my second coat and I'm so done.
It is physically quite
taxing to move around,
to get in cars, to get on
buses, to get on trains,
because I occupy so
much space through hair
and through clothing, I can't
really fit into anything,
but at the same time, I love
the impracticality of it.
People will have comfort clothes.
My comfort is more in
something where I feel myself
or something where I
have an attraction to it.
And it's that kind of love of beauty
where I feel so much more comfortable.
And when I see other people
doing the same thing,
I see what they're going through,
and that to me is beautiful.
And that is beauty.
[ethereal industrial music]
