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NEW VISIONARIES TEAM ANNOUNCED BY REVLON PROFESSIONAL

NEW VISIONARIES TEAM ANNOUNCED BY REVLON PROFESSIONAL

Feb 28, 2024 | INDUSTRY NEWS

CATEGORIES > INFORM

REVLON PROFESSIONAL ANNOUNCE ITS VISIONARIES TEAM 2024

The names were revealed following an intense final. 

Finalists for the programme gathered at the Westrow Academy to compete for a place on this year’s team. A year-long mentorship programme, directed by Revlon’s global ambassador, Mark Leeson, gives aspiring stylists the chance to supercharge their skill set. Opportunities include photo shoots, shows and demonstrations, as well as the chance to attend colour and cutting courses and social media workshops.

Judges Richard Darby from Mark Leeson, Emma Simmons from Salon 54, Steven Smart from Smart:EST 73 and Marney Lian from Gritt watched on as 18 finalists demonstrated their cutting and colouring skills in two heats. The day’s challenge was to recreate the photographic looks the finalists had submitted as part of their entry on the competition floor.

The Visionaries Team for 2024 is…

  • Sophie Cookson: Gray’s Salon, Leeds
  • Taylor Borthwick: Myka, Bathgate
  • Stephanie Dwyer: Teresa Weller Hair Art, Dorking
  • Hollie Varney: Salon Couture, Chatham

Commenting on the quality of the finalists, Mark Leeson said: “This was an awe-inspiring group of individuals. Calm under pressure but impressively creative, they came up with some seriously promising work. Being part of the Visionaries is an unmissable chance to push outside your comfort zone and experience things you’d never have believed were possible. I’m fired up for the year ahead. Our previous finalists have all gone on to flourish so let’s see what 2024 has in store for our next talented quartet.”

For their first assignment, the four Visionaries will be treated to a two-day colour and cutting course at the Revlon Academy in Leeds. “The Visionaries programme offers opportunities like no other. We have an incredible year lined up, all geared around giving this skilled team the tools, knowledge amd confidence to elevate their careers,” says Matt Horder, general manager of Revlon Professional UK & Ireland. “We’re excited to see this year’s lucky four absolutely shine!”

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The Man Who’s Changing Colour Forever

The Man Who’s Changing Colour Forever

Feb 28, 2024 | CONVERSATIONS, EXPLORE, TALKING SHOP

The Man Who’s Changing Colour forever

Creative HEAD meets the brains behind Yuv Lab – potentially the biggest industry game-changer since the hairdryer.

by CATHERINE | DOCUMENTS

Francisco Gimenez

Thought about your colour bar lately? It’s where your colourists mix the concoctions that command some of the highest charges on your treatment menu, but it’s also where your business haemorrhages money, too. Salon owners estimate that at least 40 per cent of the colour they buy goes to waste. And that’s why Francisco Gimenez has been thinking about your colour bar too.

The Mexico City-born tech entrepreneur is the brains behind the Yuv Lab, billed as the first smart, bespoke hair colour lab for salons and freelance colourists, looking to streamline and automate the colour formula process dramatically to reduce waste and costs while making clients happier.

Gimenez, whose engineering background predisposes him to problem-solving “I’ve been called a disruptor, but I have never set out deliberately to challenge things,” he says), had spent years thinking about and observing professional colour during his time with the customised hair colour business, eSalon. He had seen how colourists always mix colour by hand, a process that is not only susceptible to improvisation but that almost automatically creates a surplus of unused formula. It tends to taketwo to three shades to mix a client’s colour but only about half or a quarter tube of each shade is used. If colour runs out mid-application, it’s normal to run back to the colour bar and mix the full amount again, in order to get the same consistency. Says Gimenez: “What’s left in the mixing bowl after colouring a client’s hair gets thrown out, as does unused product in the multiple bottles of colour opened to create that person’s shade, since opened bottles of colour have a short shelf life before the formula begins to oxidise. If what’s left over isn’t quickly used on another client, it simply gets thrown away.

Yuv ambassadors Grace Dalgleish, Jack Mead & Lydia Wolfe and Samantha Cusick

On top of that, salons typically purchase a professional colour brand’s full portfolio of 100+ shades, many of which are nearly identical with only very subtle pigment differences,” he continues. “Itopened my eyes to all the unnecessary spending and excess waste that’s occurring, and I thought, there has to be a better business model.”

Gimenez’s solution is the Yuv Lab (pronounced “you’ve”), a patent-pending refillable cartridge-based dispenser that’s light enough to carry under your arm (making it perfect for freelancers, too), and that can store and dispense millions of customised colour formulations. Instead of mixing colour by hand, Yuv does it all with the touch of a button. The machine’s sensors – Gimenez had a whole team of robotics and manufacturing experts working for him – measure and calibrate exactly how much of each colour is to be used on a client, then it stores that information online for future visits, eliminating the need for keeping clients’ formulas on hand-written notecards (which as we all know, can often be marked incorrectly or get lost altogether).

Yuv uses refillable aluminium cartridges, rather than single-use plastic bottles, ticking important sustainability boxes – every delivery includes prepaid return shipping labels to send empty cartridges back to the company. The colour itself (which Gimenez knew had to be world-class) was created by a speciality colour formulation lab in Switzerland. It provides up to 100 per cent grey coverage, using ME-PPD technology to dramatically reduce allergic reactions. The Lab is also equipped with all the developers needed, including a cream bleach, and offers the flexibility to substitute ingredients to create semi-permanent formulas. 

But here’s the bit that’s truly revolutionary: you don’t purchase any colour inventory upfront. Yuv Lab runs on a ‘pay as you dispense’ model, meaning salons and freelancers will only be charged for what they use, eliminating paying for dead stock and cutting down on waste. The smart system tracks colour consumption over time and adjusts consignment deliveries to match what you use, streamlining inventory and saving precious shelf space.

“We bill for the grams of colour used, which is precisely tracked by the Yuv Lab machine and stored in your online account,” explains Gimenez. “The cost per full tube of colour is roughly the same as what the other major salon brands charge, but it’s pay-as-you-go colour, so you get better value because each tube lasts longer, and you never pay for unused formula.” He estimates that Yuv can reduce product waste and cut colour spend by as much as 35 per cent on both fronts.

It costs £49 a month to subscribe, which includes a Yuv Lab, an iPad to access its app, a thermal printer to label hair colour bowls, and access to its business solutions. “Even with our fee, you still save 25 to 35 per cent on overall colour costs because Yuv cuts out product waste and you’re not paying for inventory,” says Gimenez. “And renting the machine, rather than buying it upfront, removes all fear of expensive commitment.”

Gimenez has thought about potential barriers to Yuv Lab, too – for example, he knows that colourists get attached to their current colour brand and so do their clients, who’ve been depending on the existing hair colours. To get salons and hair colourists comfortable with switching, Yuv grasps what’s been effective for them to date to enable its machine to replicate that.

Explains Gimenez, “Instead of forcing people to learn a new system, Yuv allows each hairdresser working in the salon to customise their account. That means Yuv works bespoke to each colourist and their way of working, which means it’s not a problem if you have a new team hire and they’ve got their own unique approach to mixing and using colour.”

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FASHION EAST WITH MARK HAMPTON

FASHION EAST WITH MARK HAMPTON

Feb 27, 2024 | CREATIVE PROJECTS

CATEGORIES > EXPLORE > CREATIVE PROJECTS

FASHION EAST - MARK HAMPTON

Celebrating 40 years of London Fashion Week, Mark Hampton led the hair team for Fashion East at the A/W24 show, which saw both Johanna Parv’s and Olly Shinder’s collections showcased under one roof.

Fashion East has a reputation for giving a voice to young fashion creatives, steering the conversation, and highlighting the most innovative new names, with inspirational ways of spotlighting their work across Fashion Week. 

Flying in from Hollywood, working alongside two different designers and co-ordinating a hair team for two shows seems like no easy feat, so we caught up with session and celebrity hairstylist Mark Hampton backstage at London Fashion Week to find out just how he works his magic. 

Creative HEAD: Firstly, what does 40 years of London Fashion Week mean to you? 

Mark Hampton: It means it started before I was born! But it also means heritage. I trained at Vidal Sassoon – his connections with fashion were so deep. For me he was the first person who transcended fashion and film and art. His inspiration for Bauhaus and cutting Mia Farris’ hair for Rosemary’s Baby were things that made me go ‘wow! This is where you can go with this job?’ 

CH: Is that what sparked your interest in taking your session work further? 

MH: Yeah, and then working with Guido. I could see the industry from the true creative perspective that it should be. 

CH: So, how do you navigate working with two designers for one show? 

MH: I have a lot of ADD so I don’t think it really matters for me. I enjoy it more; I like the diversity and the challenge of trying to pull off two shows (normally we do three!). For me, it feels more like a show, the atmosphere is better because there’s less focus on one specific thing and there is more of a vibe.  

CH: How do you keep the vibe positive and the team calm? 

MH: Good assistants! My first assistant Clare [Hurford] is a legend – she really helps me with the production, separating the team and finding the strengths and weakness to play in our favour. When you’re doing two shows, the hair is very different. Olly’s show is predominantly guys, so you need barbers and people who are strong in cutting, whereas Johanna’s is more about styling, so you need people with a different mindset. 

CH: How have you approached the hair looks for Fashion East? 

MH: I think London is more about selling a character instead of selling clothes. For example, with Johanna’s collection, the clothing has a big focus on streetwear and functionality but on a very elegant level, so the hair must really reflect that character. You want to get into their psyche, what would they do if they were wearing these clothes? Did they have their hat on? Were they cycling and took their helmet off, and what would their hair look like? I think it’s important for Johanna that the person that wears her clothes looks like she could have done her own hair.  

CH: We heard you’ve been using the Supernova Pro… 

MH: Yes, it’s so fun! It’s so nice to have something that really works! And the fact that it’s professional means it’s going to do what I need it to do. 

CH: How did you use it on the looks for Fashion East? 

MH: We’ve straightened a few of the girls’ hair. On some of them that already had straight hair, we added a bit of texture as well. Then after I did the chignon, I used the straightening iron to accentuate some of the straighter pieces. 

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DUFFY – THE PERFECTION OF IMPERFECTION

DUFFY – THE PERFECTION OF IMPERFECTION

Feb 27, 2024 | DOCUMENTS

CATEGORIES > EXPLORE > DOCUMENTS

DUFFY - THE PERFECTION OF IMPERFECTION

Crowned Most Wanted Hair Icon 2023, session legend Duffy was left “shellshocked” by such validation from his peers and the industry. The go-to hair lead for labels such as Alaïa, Saint Laurent and Bottega Veneta, he tells Creative HEAD Editorial Director Amanda Nottage about about his early days as an apprentice at Vidal Sassoon, and how in the 
ever-evolving and fast-paced world of fashion, his team is vital to his collaborative process.

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Duffy, photographed by Josh Olins

How did your career in hair begin?

At the age of 12 I got a job on a Saturday at a local barber shop next to the bookies that my dad used to go to. £10 a day to sweep up, a 12-hour day. Then I needed to sort work experience and I was like, ‘Five days of work experience means 50 quid, happy days!’ And my mum said: “Not a chance! You’re going to London.” I applied to Vidal Sassoon and got a week’s work experience, so got the train up to London when I was 13. And it was quite a mad salon that one on Floral Street, there was Joseph, Agnes B. It was lively, and it just made sense to me. Why would I want to go back to school? At Vidal Sassoon I was treated like an adult, I was expected to behave like an adult. I had to achieve every day, and that for me is not just hairdressing, that’s apprenticeships across the board. 

Duffy, photographed by Josh Olins

How did your career in hair begin?

At the age of 12 I got a job on a Saturday at a local barber shop next to the bookies that my dad used to go to. £10 a day to sweep up, a 12-hour day. Then I needed to sort work experience and I was like, ‘Five days of work experience means 50 quid, happy days!’ And my mum said: “Not a chance! You’re going to London.” I applied to Vidal Sassoon and got a week’s work experience, so got the train up to London when I was 13. And it was quite a mad salon that one on Floral Street, there was Joseph, Agnes B. It was lively, and it just made sense to me. Why would I want to go back to school? At Vidal Sassoon I was treated like an adult, I was expected to behave like an adult. I had to achieve every day, and that for me is not just hairdressing, that’s apprenticeships across the board.

You’re taught a work ethic, and that your effort reaps rewards. When I left school at 15, my first pay cheque at Vidal Sassoon as a full-time assistant was £40 a week for four days in-salon and a day in the training school. And my train from Surrey was £48 a week, so my parents helped me and I worked odd jobs. I did four days of greeting clients, sweeping the floor, cleaning the toilets, washing the bowls, taking the laundry out… but the reward was I got to watch these incredible hairdressers cut hair. And then one day a week, I got to learn a skill.

How did that kid working at Sassoon start his adventure into session?

I met Eugene Souleiman – he was in my friend’s clothes shop in Covent Garden buying some expensive Japanese denim – and he opened the door to a whole other world of hairdressing. “What do you mean you live in New York and you fly here?” – I had no idea what he did, but he was this incredibly alive character.

I was at the Seven Dials branch of Sassoon, and Beverly Streeter [from the agency Streeters] rang the front desk. They said it was my mum! “Duffy darling, it’s Beverly. Eugene told me to call, he’s got a show.” I phoned in sick! The show was Hussein Chalayan, and I specifically remember this crazy Frenchman with a Mohican or something, standing on a chair with a clipboard and a stopwatch around his neck. He gave this speech to all the models on how to walk, how to embrace the energy of the show. Everybody cheered and the show started…

So that was it – a session career awaited?

Well, I finished my apprenticeship and thought, ‘hang on, there’s got to be more to this’. I was cutting old ladies’ hair, making 600 quid a month. So, I left hairdressing and London. I thought that it just wasn’t for me. I got in a van and I drove around Europe for two years snowboarding. I came back and was working in my best mate’s mum’s cheese factory in Camberwell, and on the weekends I was driving a van for an antique store. It was the best time, skating every night with a couple of cans of beer with my mates. And then a friend rang, “I’m opening a barber shop, we’re looking for staff…”

An old friend of mine came into the barber shop and asked me to cut some guy’s hair for a picture for GQ. They wanted a Nike ‘swoosh’ in the side. I was like, ‘oh, interesting’. Then I did a couple of other little things with him, and I’d met a few people, kind of East London, cool, i-D, Dazed crowd. Then my girlfriend started working as a styling assistant, and I was like, ‘Let’s just give this a go’.

How seriously did you take it this time? Could you see a career unfolding?

I was maybe 20 or 21, and I ran into Eugene. He was living in New York still, his assistant had just left and he asked me to come to New York, to work with him. I thought it was cool, and asked him to book the tickets. He said: “No, you book the ticket, you move to New York. And once you’re here, you can work on the team.” So I said, “I’m not doing that!” But six months later, he asked me to join him again, this time in Italy. I asked: “Can I bring a mate because your team’s really scary?!” They were the best hairdressers in the world – Angelo Seminara, Rudi Lewis, Raphael Salley, Johnny Sarpong, Martin Cullen – they’re legends!

These were the people that I was able to learn from under Eugene’s team and so James Rowe and I took our skateboards, booked some EasyJet flights and flew to Milan! We didn’t sleep for two weeks. And if we did sleep, James and I were sharing a bed or sleeping on the floor of a friend, skating between shows because we couldn’t afford cabs. Incredible times, I learnt so much.

Fast forward to last September… how did it feel when your name was called out as the 2023 Most Wanted Hair Icon at Tate Modern?

I didn’t know what to say. I’d like to think I don’t have an ego. I for sure do, sadly. It felt like I’d achieved something. To have an industry say, ‘Congratulations, you’ve done pretty well’, was quite mega. Us session hairdressers wake up every day and you’re your own boss, you go to work and you try to forge your own path in what you do. Or you just turn up, which is what I’ve pretty much done for the last 20 years, turn up and see what the day brings you. But to understand that people are paying attention, that I’m doing something right, was amazing. And my son’s really proud. He took the trophy to school!

You made a point of saying a big thank you to your team…

Oh, it’s all about the team, particularly Lukas Tralmer, who’s now going out on his own; Dale Delaporte; Paddy McDougall and Laurence Walker. I can turn up to a show, be the best hairdresser in the business, but if I’ve got 75 or 85 models in Milan as I did for Bottega Veneta, and each one of them needs the nuance of that personality, I need my team. And if my team aren’t happy, if they don’t feel appreciated or acknowledged, if they don’t feel like they have a voice, then there’s no point in me trying to continue doing the job I’m doing.

The last season that I worked with Eugene, I think we did 29 shows in three cities, and you turned up and you did that show. Now, the expectation is huge. They have a lookbook being shot backstage. They have first looks, they have TikTok, they have Instagram, they have video. And shows are becoming more adventurous. You might have four hours, and the rehearsal ends up being two hours. So, then you’ve got to get four kids through each chair in two hours. 

How would you describe your aesthetic? And which environment speaks to you more – the live show, the set?

I’ve built my career through mishaps and mistakes in a way. The perfection of imperfection is an incredible thing. On my journey to find perfection, I found something else I loved, which was imperfection in classicism. You’re trying to achieve something incredibly beautiful and classic, but once you get there, you’ve seen it already. It’s not new, it’s not evolved. So, the evolution came in either making something perfect, and taking it apart afterwards, or the journey there.

You can make a perfect silhouette, then as you’re undoing it in front of the camera, you suddenly see something like a shape that is so abstract. So let’s explore that. Let’s take a couple of frames, let me put a bit of wind in it, pull it apart a bit more. Let’s capture those moments because a show is instantaneous. But at a show, you’re presenting the reality, in three dimensions. If they’re wearing wigs and the audience is sitting on the floor, they’re looking up under the hairline – you’ve got to take it all into consideration. But when you’re in a studio working two dimensionally, there’s so much fakery that you can build and create. That is where that personal joy comes from. You can do the same silhouette on three different people, and you get a completely different result.

Backstage at Haider Ackermann, A/W20. Photography by Max Hoell
Backstage at Sies Marjan, A/W20. Photography by Max Hoell
Prada A/W22 campaign. Photography by David Sims
Raf Simons, S/S23. Photography by Goldie Williams

How would you describe your aesthetic? And which environment speaks to you more – the live show, the set?

I’ve built my career through mishaps and mistakes in a way. The perfection of imperfection is an incredible thing. On my journey to find perfection, I found something else I loved, which was imperfection in classicism. You’re trying to achieve something incredibly beautiful and classic, but once you get there, you’ve seen it already. It’s not new, it’s not evolved. So, the evolution came in either making something perfect, and taking it apart afterwards, or the journey there.

You can make a perfect silhouette, then as you’re undoing it in front of the camera, you suddenly see something like a shape that is so abstract. So let’s explore that. Let’s take a couple of frames, let me put a bit of wind in it, pull it apart a bit more. Let’s capture those moments because a show is instantaneous. But at a show, you’re presenting the reality, in three dimensions. If they’re wearing wigs and the audience is sitting on the floor, they’re looking up under the hairline – you’ve got to take it all into consideration. But when you’re in a studio working two dimensionally, there’s so much fakery that you can build and create. That is where that personal joy comes from. You can do the same silhouette on three different people, and you get a completely different result.

How do you keep yourself firing on all cylinders?

I can’t tell you there’s a super-rare book I look at in those times. My inspiration comes from my team, and from the creative environment, the creative team. They all bring something to the table and it’s my job and their job individually to puzzle it together. Anthony Turner said in i-D magazine, and I’ll probably misquote him: “After craft, it becomes only about taste”.

That hit the nail on the head. We can all be the best technical hairdresser – and everyone should try and be able to do those things – but after that point, what sets you apart is down to taste. And taste is evolving, my taste changes all the time.

I don’t think the hair I do now is anything like the hair I did 20 years ago, when I didn’t have a team to do everything. I look back at some of those pictures and they’re brilliant, but they’re totally different. We naturally evolve as creative people, so we do lose and gain clients. Sometimes we have lulls and it’s the same for me – because at the level that we are all aspiring to work at it, it becomes about taste.

It can be a punishing schedule in session. Do you still enjoy it all?

I feel incredibly blessed to have been given so many opportunities. I’ve seen the world by the age of 45, I’ve met every person I could ever wish to meet. The world that this industry has offered me is unlike any other world I could have ever imagined. So yes, I enjoy it. Maybe sometimes not as much because it can be exhausting. It can be monotonous sometimes – flight, car, hotel, studio, hotel, car, hotel – but that’s also part of the game.

But like Guido said, and I might misquote him too: “I still feel nervous going to work every day”. And that is the most important thing. The day I stop feeling nervous walking into a studio is the day when all the other stuff that goes with it doesn’t really make sense anymore. Because if I’m not pushing myself and my team, and I’m just taking a pay cheque and having supper in a nice hotel, it doesn’t add up. There’s something wrong.

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GARY GILL – A MODERN TRAILBLAZER

GARY GILL – A MODERN TRAILBLAZER

Feb 27, 2024 | DOCUMENTS

CATEGORIES > EXPLORE > DOCUMENTS

GARY GILL - A MODERN TRAILBLAZER

The acclaimed session stylist may occasionally reference his troubled past in his work, but the results are always spectacularly forward-thinking. Gary Gill attributes his irreverent approach to hairstyling to the years he spent as a teenager in Brighton’s punk community. His work is artistic, sculptural and anti-establishment, stamped with the codes of counter-culture he was obsessed with while growing up. His aesthetic has been called anti-glamour (he particularly loves that description).

Gary Gill

Relatively late in life, the former salon owner and Wella educator has reached an elite level in the world of session styling that only a select few ever achieve. He is called upon to generate looks for Balenciaga, Y Project, Dries Van Noten, Acne Studios, Martine Rose, Diesel and plenty of other labels seeking to balance their collections with his signature clean, artful styling. In 2019 he was voted into the BoF 500, a global index of hand- selected professionals shaping the fashion industry.

But what’s equally impressive – and possibly also a large part of the reason for his success – is his meticulous approach to work, his calm demeanour and his kindness to others. “How to work with people and how to be within large groups of people I learned the most from my mum, who was a hairdresser herself,” he says. “She was a really good teacher but only later in life

I realised what a great mentor she was. From being a young, arrogant hairdresser who thought he knew it all, I became a mature person within the industry. She always used to say that 90 per cent of success is having a good attitude. It was the most valuable lesson for me in how to get on in the industry. At hairdressing events people would always say, “Hi Gary, how is your mum?” It’s made me realise how good she was with people and how important that is.” 

Gary Gill

Relatively late in life, the former salon owner and Wella educator has reached an elite level in the world of session styling that only a select few ever achieve. He is called upon to generate looks for Balenciaga, Y Project, Dries Van Noten, Acne Studios, Martine Rose, Diesel and plenty of other labels seeking to balance their collections with his signature clean, artful styling. In 2019 he was voted into the BoF 500, a global index of hand- selected professionals shaping the fashion industry.

But what’s equally impressive – and possibly also a large part of the reason for his success – is his meticulous approach to work, his calm demeanour and his kindness to others. “How to work with people and how to be within large groups of people I learned the most from my mum, who was a hairdresser herself,” he says. “She was a really good teacher but only later in life

I realised what a great mentor she was. From being a young, arrogant hairdresser who thought he knew it all, I became a mature person within the industry. She always used to say that 90 per cent of success is having a good attitude. It was the most valuable lesson for me in how to get on in the industry. At hairdressing events people would always say, “Hi Gary, how is your mum?” It’s made me realise how good she was with people and how important that is.” 

Gary, we don’t get to see you very often nowadays but we hear a lot about you – especially from the new generation of stylists. It seems like everybody who’s ever won an It List award wants to work with you!

I’ve always been very interested in our industry. I feel a lot of session stylistsforget where they came from, but for me it’s so important. I always say to my team, ‘You are the future, and I’m currently living my future!’ I’ve had two or three careers already, so I’m very positive about supporting them, and very pro them understanding where they came from, and how important it is to remember that they came from salon backgrounds, where they were doing 10 clients a day and had all that incredible training. I’m always really keen to connect with the industry, it’s just that my time has become so limited because of my session career. So, to do interviews has always been a good way for me to say how I feel, and tell my story a little bit, you know? It’s not an ‘all about me’ thing. I’m very passionate about younger hairdressers doing well and feeling that they’re worthy of being who they are as a hairdresser. It’s about inspiring them, to say ‘you can go on and do many things’, whether as an educator, a platform artist, a session stylist or a salon owner. And so much of what I do now is stuff that I learnt when I was a salon owner.

How did you find your way into hairdressing?

I grew up in Brighton and I’ve never made any secret of the fact that I was very wild as a youngster. I was rebellious, always wanting to do my own thing. On the plus side, being involved with different gangs gave me an insight into youth culture and its tribalism, which, in turn, led me to music, fashion and style. Back then, in the ’70s and ’80s, hair was intrinsic to youth culture, and it was a way for me to be able to express myself. Changing the way I looked, changing my hair or connecting to punk, ska, goth or the rave scene was a way for me to be rebellious, to say something and to have a point of view, without having to put it into words.

Moving from Brighton to London, I didn’t really have any direction and I felt a bit lost. I actually started hairdressing to make my parents feel a bit more proud of me. I trained in a little salon only a few miles from where I live now, in southwest London. The day I walked into that salon, I felt like I had found my home. There was something about it that made me think, ‘I love this’. And I got a very good training with an excellent teacher, who really put herself out for me. We’d do extra training nights and enter competitions, which was a really great discipline, and I was so enthusiastic about it and so into doing hair that within three years I decided to get my own salon – I’d only just finished my apprenticeship!

My mum came to work with me and I learnt a lot from her – not necessarily about hair, but more about how to run a day-to-day salon business because she’d had her own salon for about 10 years. My dad was a very good businessman, too; both my parents really were guiding lights for me, I was so lucky.

So, that was in 1985, I was 21 years old. And of course, I thought I knew everything, then quickly realised I knew nothing and made a million mistakes. But my mum was a great mentor and I had a great business partner, Kay Bolton, and it ended up being very successful. We expanded into the shop next door, we employed 25 people… And then it just got to the point where my mum wanted to retire, my business partner had a baby – and it seemed the right time to call it a day.

But it’s quite a leap, going from salon owner to session stylist. So, how – and why – did you make that happen?

I was 39, coming up to 40 and I remember thinking, ‘If I’m not careful, I’m just going to end up in this little office, in my salon, all on my own. Maybe I’ve got something else in me’. So, we collectively decided to sell the salon to a bigger company, which had a chain of salons and an academy, and I ended up staying on with them for 10 years as a consultant. But it was only one day a week, and that allowed me to discover myself as a session hairdresser.

When you first started out, how confident were you with your session hairdressing skills?

I would read magazines like i-D, The Face and Dazed and I would think, ‘I can do that’. But then when I started doing it, I realised it’s actually really hard. It was quite a shock to me when I started working in fashion to discover I just didn’t have the skills that were needed. So, I had to get some experience through working with other artists on shows and shoots. It was maybe easier for me because I was a bit older and more confident, and people seemed to respect and accept me. I worked on teams alongside Eugene Souleiman and Duffy, and stylists like Harris Elliot and Elgar Johnson, while photographers like Gerald Jenkins and Jamie Hawkesworth gave me some great opportunities. I learnt so much from these people.

Aged 40, it was really funny becoming an assistant, but it was so liberating, it was lovely. I shed all the responsibilities of being a salon owner, I could just do hair. I started doing some of my own shows in London – smaller ones at Men’s Fashion Week – and then I started doing a few in Paris and it snowballed from there, resulting in Paris Vogue labelling me ‘one of the four best hair and make-up geniuses’ in a feature on the next big names in beauty. But it was meeting the Russian stylist Lotta Volkova and designer/photographer Gosha Rubchinskiy that really catapulted me into the limelight. Vetements had started street casting, using more interesting-looking people.

And I’d been through that whole ’70s and ’80s thing in the salon, doing the haircuts and the really bright colours, and so I’d go to the tests in Paris with Lotta and Demna [Gvasalia, Vetements co-founder], and there was an authenticity to what I was doing. And I guess I was lucky – I was in the right place at the right time, with the right skill set for the right kind of job. And that really helped me. And from there, Demna went to Balenciaga, and the rest is history…

Martine Rose – London S/S24
Molly Goddard – London S/S24
Diesel – Milan S/S24
Diesel – Milan S/S24

It seems that as well as getting this experience, it was important for you to be authentic, and to develop something unique to you?

When I started out in session, I remember thinking, ‘I just don’t know if I’m going to be happy in this environment’. I just didn’t feel like it was going to fit with me. So, I made a conscious decision about how my work was going to be, what kind of aesthetic I was going to promote, to create a point of difference and get away from what I suppose you would call the ‘glamorous’ side of fashion. That was really important to me. To feel confident, I have to understand what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.

My advice to anybody who wants to work in fashion is to hone your craft. If you don’t develop good skills, this will become apparent very quickly. This world is all about reputation and it’s about making sure that you can do the work. If you develop strong skills you then have the power to subvert them, and having this foundation means you can have good ideas very quickly, which is demanded of you as a session stylist.

Those technical skills from your days in the salon have obviously helped you create your niche, but there’s another side – the mentoring of your team, how you educate them, teach them new skills – that surely also links back to your time as an employer?

To a certain extent, but I think I’ve improved on it even more. We just did a show for Balenciaga, where we had more than 100 models and a five-day prep, and I had two or three teams in different places at different times. And the management of every single one of those people, whether they’re there as part of my core team, or just packing the kit, it matters to me that everyone feels valued. It’s impossible for me to do my job without my team, and it’s virtually impossible to do it without a team that is motivated and excited.

I can have all the ideas in the world, I can do all the client meetings in the world, but I can’t do all the work. It’s just not possible to turn out that many high quality models without a very strong team. And I’m not just talking about doing hair, I also have [my agency] Streeters, which is phenomenal.

It’s just a massive team effort. And I genuinely believe that if people want to work for you because of what you’re bringing in terms of values and ethos, you can do anything. I don’t want people to come to work and feel fear, I want them to feel comfortable – people do really good work when they feel comfortable. I mean, I am strict, and I do have quite a rigid regime, but on the other hand I give people space to do good work.

My previous first assistant, Tom Wright, worked for me for 10 years and he left this year. He had been so integral to what I have done and created to this point, I will miss him but we planned his departure, it was a kind of a slow process to ensure he was secure with his move. I also would be doing him a disservice if I didn’t help him on his way to pursue his own career. The way I structure my team gives me strength and depth and all the people who were working next in line have all moved up and filled in the gap and are offering me something new.

 

Vetements – Paris A/W20
Acne Studios – Paris S/S23
Vetements – Paris A/W20
Martine Rose – London S/S20

Your work is very distinctive. How do you retain that point of difference?

I got to a point where I thought, ‘Right, I know what I want my work to look like.
I know I have good ideas. I’ve developed my skills – now I need to make sure I’m working with people who share my vibe’. I think carefully about who I work with, there’s got to be a mutual understanding.

Clients look at different portfolios and think, ‘Who is the right person for this job?’ and I think it can hold you back if you do a lot of everything. If your work changes from shoot to shoot, it’s harder for a client to understand what you’re about and if you are right for the job. I see people who join agencies and they’re not being managed as well as they could be. If they are pressured to do all the jobs that are offered to them, their career can end up snowballing into nothing. It’s better to have no content than the wrong content.

So, the individual aesthetic is everything. Is this something you help your team to develop?

It’s crucial to have your own point of view. This could be a style, a quality or a message. Then, you need to work with people who will enable you to elevate what you do and who give you a platform on which you are able to be your best. To do this, you need to educate yourself about photographers, about stylists, about brands. Do your research so that you can make good decisions about who you work with, rather than being seduced by the name of a brand. Don’t fall for that.

I think a lot of people do because they think it is going to get them to a certain place, but it doesn’t always. Develop a strong strategy about where you’re going and who you are going to be. Really research your ideas and make sure they are strong, and you are not too influenced by other people’s opinions. And practice hard. Even now if there is something I am not certain I understand how to do, or know how to use, I will practice it until I feel completely confident with it.

You were contributing editor at Dazed for several years, and now you’re a ‘dream maker’ at Beauty Papers. What does that entail? I’ve always had a very strong relationship with Beauty Papers. The founders, Maxine Leonard and Valerie Wickes, have been very supportive of my career and given me a lot of space to do interesting work that other people maybe wouldn’t have let me do. It’s a role that I’m sharing with Eugene and Holli Smith, so the three of us are the hair dream makers. I guess that means we’re contributing beauty editors, taste-makers within the world of hair and make-up.

It’s great that hairdressers are being recognised in that way, isn’t it?

Yes, absolutely. I think it’s really inspirational for younger hairdressers. And it’s funny, my team come from all over the world and we were chatting the other day and I told them that when I was young, you only did hair if you were kind of considered a bit daft, or not academically good enough to do another type of job. And they all said it was exactly the same where they were from, even at their age, which is mid-20s to early 30s. Hairdressing is such a stigmatised industry and yet creatively hairdressers are on the same level as designers and so many people have made great businesses out of beauty and hair. So I hope that one day it will finally be recognised as an industry that can have some respect.

Do you think you could use your voice in the industry to help change things?

Hairdressing saved my life on several occasions, and I’m very grateful for that. In the summer, I did the Summer Club. It’s where you go and spend a day with some inner-city kids who are considering working in a fashion-based creative environment. And it was a lovely thing to work in that environment, and to try and show that no matter where you’re from, and what you’re doing, there’s opportunity in a creative field. It was the first time I’ve done something like that, and I got a lot from it. I actually ended up having four young people from the Summer Club come and work on one of my shows in London. A couple of them were doing video and photography, one of them worked with my producer and one of them wanted to do hair. I was trying to show there’s lots to do in and around our environment, rather than just the work we do.

And for the past two years a production company has been filming a documentary about me. I was a bit apprehensive at first but then I decided I would do it because I wanted to tell my story and make it inspirational for people who are coming from areas where they can’t get a job, or they can’t see any future in school, or they’re running into problems with crime or drugs. I want to show that you can still do something, that there’s still a way forward. I feel like I’ve been stigmatised a lot because of being a hairdresser and this film is a way for me to say, ‘Actually, you have to be pretty smart to be able to get through this world that I work in’. Because it’s not easy. You have got to have many skill sets, emotional intelligence, production skills, people skills, and then you’ve got to do your job on top. And yet sadly, sometimes when I’m dealing with things outside of my industry, I tend to take my signature, which says hairdresser, off my email.

So I just really feel really passionate about making people understand what a positive job it is and the employment opportunities that exist.

Rebecca Chang is Gary’s new first assistant (Creative HEAD readers may also remember her as the 2017 It List It Girl winner). So, what’s it like to hold such an important role within the team?

“When Gary asked me to become his first assistant I felt like everything I have worked for in the past 10 years had come true. It was perfect timing because I understand now how much and what it takes to be a first assistant – how to handle situations under high pressure and perform your best, even when obstacles come your way.

“Gary is a perfectionist and there is always a reason why he does something. He has taught me that ‘Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance’ and I swear by that, even in my personal life.

“But he is also very open-minded and encourages us to contribute creatively on shoots and how we can improve our system. I don’t feel like I am ‘working for’ Gary; I am ‘working with’ him. He is always asking our (the core team’s) opinion about everything from the hair creative to which hotel we should stay in. We are very transparent in our communication and I believe that’s what makes our team a family.

“Gary is my mentor – that’s how he stands out from other session stylists I have worked for. He has shaped me to become a stronger artist, both technically and mentally. He encourages me to do my own shoots when the opportunity arises, and is so supportive
of me building my portfolio and clientele. He is like a father figure, moulding and guiding me at work and outside work. He’s taught me how to be the best version of myself and I will forever be thankful to him.”

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