En Garde

Transforming looks is often also the moment of hair transformations too. The cloud of curls and ringlets flowing free in the air, suddenly tethered, restrained and controlled. The hair swept up and back, the hair enmeshed, the control and release from ponytail to French twist, from low ballerina bun to high chignon. Fashion and hair are an odd partnership since fashionable hair is so often the opposite of nature. A neat bob, a layered chop, a cloud of curls often demand the hair is treated harshly or forced into its “fashion” look of the moment. Just as across the centuries the ideal figure for fashion changes, and indeed by country and culture, so too with hair we watch how cultural appropriation of styles, or the demands of a certain look are not natural and are wrong.

In these images we see how the hair is natural and released, then neatly but not extremely enfolded into a chignon, then restrained and brushed up into cone and finally fully concealed and suppressed. However, in every shot of the actual hair the texture can be seen, the poker straight is not the foundation, there’s an element of the natural ripple to the hair that remains modern, and is integral to the model herself, it’s not forced as any cost into a fashionable look.

Hair is such a defining element in our looks, our personal lives that the relationship with our hairdresser and how we treat our hair is intense. The shifts in how we treat hair in fashion shoots is an essential part of the fashion story. If we look back to the swinging sixties and then the glamour 1980’s it’s a huge leap, and now we treat the model and their hair with respect and acknowledgement of her as a person. This is clearly apparent from this story. The hair is beautiful because it’s real, and it’s used to enhance and tell the story, not merely something to be used at the stylist’s whim.

The model looks strong and at ease, the story is about beauty and the images are beautiful. This is is achieved through understanding the model and placing her in the story, through harmony and teamwork where the clothes, the makeup and the hair are perfectly balanced and the story is communicated through every member of the team is “on the same page”. A ghastly platitude but one that is useful, since, like the players in an orchestra, for a fashion shoot everyone must be playing the same tune.

Words by Tony Glenville