| DANILO - hair stylist for the 'GHD x Katy Perry' campaign Q&A. |
| Written by SUPPLIED | ||
| Thursday, 20 October 2011 13:09 | ||
DANILO the hair stylist for the 'GHD' SCARLET campaign photoshoot - featuring KATY PERRY - walks us through the look he created... Q: Tell us about the Snow White looks you created on Katy for the ghd campaign... A: Originally I was given from ghd some inspiration, it definitely had a 20’s deco feel about it but we wanted to make sure it looked contemporary as well. Probably the most exciting thing about those looks is they were set with a flat iron/styler. The idea that you take a flat styler and create a wave is really not so much for hairdressers but I think as it’s getting out to the public people are amazed by the frontier of a flat iron/styler/straightener and the new choices and the new ways to use them. This definitely represented that and I really stuck to it and wanted the challenge to set the hair in a wave pattern with the flat iron/styler/straightener. It’s a fun technique, it’s a simple technique and it’s something that I think stylists will really enjoy getting the knack of and showing off. It’s really a show-off to take a flat iron/styler/straightener and create these kinds of looks. Q: How did you get into the hair industry? A: It’s a long story because I’ve been doing hair for quite a while. I initially was introduced to Vidal Sassoon, and that’s where my initial training began. My teachers were all the head teachers at Sassoon’s first location out of London, which was in San Francisco where I grew up. My initial exposure was to hair and the approach to hair that they do there. It was a great foundational thing but I also was coming out in the 80’s, I was a punk and there were a lot of new things going on, particularly breaking out of the Sassoon mould. Aesthetically and technically it was such a great background in training and to meet that many people who really cared so much about hair was fascinating. So initially that’s where it started, in San Francisco with some great teachers. In 1980 I moved to New York and was working in John Dellaria, and it was there that I learned how to free my hands and how to communicate between my eyes, my mind and my hands. That set me up for a big playground, which I didn’t really know, I just went to play but I didn’t really know where this was going to take me. I met a gentleman at that salon, who asked me to be his vice president and artistic director, and we embarked on our careers and also on that period of time - which was supermodel. I was with Naomi, Christie, Linda, they were the kids and we were going up the ranks with them, and we were the hair, and we had Francois Nars and other fantastic makeup artists. We all collectively lived the whole ‘superdom’ thing that went on. There’s a lot of training in that – 17 shows in New York, 17 shows in Milan, I had an exclusive contract for 10 years with Thierry Mugler in Paris even though I did do some other shows there. So it was a real treadmill, that’s what my point is, a lot of exposure, a lot of time. Coming into the mid 90’s I started to feel that the public or commercial eye was starting to turn towards celebrity, so I started coming out here to Los Angeles to work with more celebrities which at that time was really quite a stigma, funnily enough. People were like, ‘you’re going to LA? Did you hear that’s not a good place to go...’ – now it’s the sh*t, but at the time it was not! That was very interesting time to be ahead of the game, in the sense that what it did was expose me to movies, I started working on music videos – those two categories were huge, I was already doing the fashion and magazine stuff. I started also working with other hair care lines and playing with the idea of trade, mass and commercial concepts, and my little hairdresser mind kept growing from knowing techniques and getting exposed to great minds and like-minded people and getting into these great playgrounds where you get to be very creative. So it’s been a long time, and each couple of years I get these new monikers that I can hang on to be in a movie... I’ve been very fortunate in the music industry in that I’ve worked with great people, and we’ve won a lot of awards for our work, and it’s just been a lot of fun really. That’s been the motivation – much like today. Q: How was it working with Katy Perry on the ghd shoot? A: The great thing for me about working with Katy is that she has such a great sense of her own image and I listen to her, I don’t fight her. Some people you need to help them, but she sees herself very clearly and very playfully and I’ve learnt to trust her instincts for her. Q: What would be your top tip for girls who want to change their style, but don’t want to chop all of their hair off? A: We’re living in modern days and anything goes. You used to be thought of as a little bit out of your mind if you changed your hair too often look-wise but these days you can be curly and straight in the same day, and quite often women do that – totally change their look for an evening out. You can do nothing, you can mess your hair up even more... the last few years I’ve really enjoyed what I call a 70’s length, the fullness, it’s not long that it’s so long and because you’re keeping it a healthy length it’s got a lot of versatility. You can put it up, you can put it in a ponytail, you still have enough to play with but not so much that you have to deal with it. What I’ve been liking is this luxurious quality to hair, even when we funk up the style a little at the core you still have this beautiful quality of hair. I’ve just really enjoyed the ‘anything goes’ kind of situation, it’s very playful. Sometimes the biggest hairdo is appropriate, sometimes the smallest hairdo can have the biggest effect. The other thing that comes from my eye when I look at a woman is the idea of who you are head to toe. I’m not just looking at your head, amongst my friends we have this term we call ‘lady head’, where someone shows up and their head is separate from everything else that’s going on – we call it ‘lady head’ because it sort of walks on its own. I want to know your shoes, I want to know the length of your skirt and any sort of information – I call it connecting the dots. Ultimately I can give you a crown on your head if I take all that information and put it together and come up with a fuller picture. I also listen to other people and hear what their inspirations are and where they want to go with it. Sometimes I’m like, whatever you want, I’ll do it really well for you. So my strongest point is make sure you look at your entire look, just don’t get into mirror lock and don’t understand that it really can have a power, head to toe. Q: When and how were you first introduced to ghd? A: I’m always in locations that cater to professionals and I’m always looking at equipment. The first thing I noticed was the ghd packaging, I’m a Gustav Klimt lover so when I started seeing these nods that way with the placement of the gold and metalics, I was like, that is a beautiful box! I was given my first ghd, and one of the great pleasures of what I do is that people who are really proud of their stuff give you some to try it. I was given the heat protector spray and a flat iron/styler, and to be honest I still couldn’t get beyond the box, I was just in shock that somebody actually put together such great packaging. Fast forward to today where we’re shooting this new campaign and the presentation of the product is just amazing. I was blown away, and I can’t imagine a woman that wouldn’t want that in their room, in their boudoir to get all pretty. I was in shock that it looked that good to be honest and initially that’s what brought me in. Now that I’ve had a chance to really play with the irons/stylers and really start to get to know the product, I really feel that ghd sits in its own niche which is really hard to in this industry because there are a lot of tools out there. I think ghd have done a great job of hitting that niche but you’ve raised the bar, you have a standard that’s there and it starts with the packaging. I hate to keep on saying that, but I’m a big believer so to know that the first layer is so well done, and also a place that you can put your product because it’s a box that you don’t want to throw away. I think it’s a great idea that you hold onto it and use it for your tool. That makes it so easy to find, you just walk in and it’s just there. Your stuff looks pretty, and that’s why it stands out – it’s classic quality. Q: Who do you admire most in hairdressing? A: There are many people that I admire, there’s a fleet of contemporaries in the world that I work with and I know that there are many hairdressers that I don’t know, that I would just sit there and go ‘Wow, you’re crazy talented’. That’s one of the things that I love about this career as well, is that, yes I’m on the side with the jobs that I’m doing, but on the other side I get to get in these situations and meet these amazing talented people. The list is really long, and it starts way back and becomes historical. Whoever was up in Louis Couture’s hair, my hat goes off to them – my wig goes off to them! Alexander Paris – a really incredible man. I’ve been exposed to really great people. I have to say Sassoon really blew my mind, just knowing the man, knowing the life. That’s a really big question for me, I definitely feel there is some very amazing talent, contemporary living talent and then there’s a lot of past talent - Kenneth in New York that was doing the very chic, 60’s and 70’s bouffant hair. I’m very diverse about my hair tastes too; I’m not stuck on one. I’ll get really excited about something that I’m seeing that’s new that’s in the street, and then I’ll really like the tradition too. I’m not answering that question very well because I don’t want to get pegged, but let’s just say that it’d probably be easier for me to tell you hair that I don’t like but life’s too short for that! Q: Whose hair would you most like to style? A: When I moved to New York in 1980, which is quite a while now, I wrote a list of women’s hair that I wanted to do and the two women that I didn’t get to do were very loyal to their hairdressers all their life. That was Elizabeth Taylor and Jackie Onassis. But everybody else I got in the end. There are lots of people on the scene that showed up. This last summer I worked on getting set up on tour with Katy, I shot a Deborah Harry video, and the Scissor Sisters. Q: You work with so many amazing people, who is your favourite client? A: My best friend, Gwen Stefani, just because there’s so much room for us to play. There’s such a trust. I love the people that I work with, but the funny thing is it always comes back to Gwen in so many ways for me and as far as the public and how they think of me. I could think of a lot of things that I have done that were amazing but, there’s the fashion crowd that knows that I’ve been at Mugler, there’s the movie crowd that knows I did Mars Attacks and some other movies, and then there’s all the women in the world that love Gwen. It’s so amazing that everybody loves Gwen, and I do too so get in line! Her look isn’t forced, it’s really organically. More importantly, something I’ve always liked about her overall appearance is that she wears it, it doesn’t wear her and that’s her hair, her dress, whatever. You get Gwen first, and the ‘wow’ starts filling in around you, like ‘Oh my god, look at that!’ There’s an honesty in it, so I really love that honesty. And again with all these women that I’ve just mentioned, it’s the same thing with them. I just love that they own who they are, and they wear it, and they’re marching to their own drum. Which is exciting for me, because I’m just a wee bit jaded, I’ve seen a few beautiful people in my life. Q: You’ve done so much, is there one highlight of your career? A: I work on an event know as the ‘Life Ball’, it’s the biggest AIDS benefit in the world and this will be our 20th year coming up this May. It’s just astounding to know that you can, in my little way, you can give back and have such an amazing effect through your career. It’s just so incredible as hairdressers, one, we have such an intimacy with people we are working with, but two, through your craft and your passion you can actually do something and effect the world. It’s funny, a friend of mine is Vivienne Mackinder and she has a series of movies, “I’m not just a Hairdresser” they’re called, and there’s so much truth in that simple phrase. There’s just so much that goes on unspoken in our world, and to be honest this opportunity to make a big dent and be part of a group that makes a good chunk of millions of dollars through teasing and arranging hair follicles and having a really good time doing it, it’s a blast! Those kinds of highlights are huge; I’ve had really interesting moments. Mars Attacks was a very interesting movie to work on for obvious reasons; I got to do a stellar hair do. I had an interesting moment that I really enjoyed, I was working with Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell, Herb Ritts was shooting the Absolut campaign at the ice hotel in Sweden and they built it for us so it was all Absolut-ed out. It was amazing to be working at 42 below.
GHD Scarlet Collection Deluxe includes: Limited edition, red plated ghd Gold Classic Styler + a stylish, heat resistant, red satin styler bag + two sectioning clips for styling plus a protective plate guard + a matching black and red compact travel hairdryer + art deco inspired styler clutch bag enclosed in a deep red vanity case [RRP $359.00]. The ghd Scarlet Collection limited edition gift sets are available from approved ghd salons from 10th October 2011. www.ghdhair.com/au |
