How to Be Daring With Your Hair
When you reflect back on some of the most incredible runway hairstyles of all time, you're probably thinking of hairstylist Guido Palau's work. He's the man responsible for the hair season after season at shows like Prada, Alexander McQueen, Marc Jacobs, Valentino, Givenchy, and Alexander Wang—to name a small few.
Never one to play it safe, Palau lives his life fighting the mediocrity of pretty; the banal existence of the conventional. "I think the things I most admire in designers and anyone creative is when they are daring," says Palau. "Without daring you don't move on— you don't move forward."
To Palau, drastic coloring, chopping, and sculpting of hair—and then wearing it with unabashed confidence— is what makes any and all hair daring. He's not afraid of an elegant braid (just look at any Valentino show), but it's his more eccentric work that is often the most memorable.
Last year, he cut and dyed model Katie Moore's hair into a jagged red bob with baby bangs for the Alexander Wang show (see above, left). The style, while not classically beautiful, catapulted Moore into top-model status within the fashion community. "When you're cutting somebody's hair, sometimes you're doing it and you think, 'god, this girl is going from [her shoulders] to an orange short bob," he says with a nervous laugh. "A lot of the models are like, 'it's fine'. You have to be daring to push boundaries."
Palau's styles aren't always well-received by the masses. Just last month, his colorful dreadlocks at the Marc Jacobs spring 2017 show made waves when the internet accused him of cultural appropriation. "Marc Jacobs was quite daring, but it wasn't meant to be. But it became daring," reflected Palau. He also made news this season when he chopped and bleached the hair of 18 models for the Alexander Wang show into messy shags.
The thing about Palau is that he so often sources inspiration from real women and street culture. So while one of his styles might be offensive, or ugly, or appropriative to some people, it's actually coming from a place of utmost respect and appreciation. "Growing up I was always attracted to things that were unconventional. Because I didn't feel like I could conform to anything. I wasn't that person. I couldn't relate to them. It was street culture, music, and the alternative that attracted me. So I always try to present that," says the hairstylist, who is also the Global Creative Director for Redken.
When asked what his most daring runway hairstyle was to date, Palau recalled the Alexander McQueen spring 2010 show. "I loved the last show I did with Lee that was I think called Atlantis. It was like two fins of hair and braids. And there were these big armadillo platforms. It was a great moment for him in some ways but obviously not in others," he recalls.
Palau says that we all know what "pretty looks like," so what's interesting about being boxed-in to the idea of beautiful hair? "I think people need to affronted with things so they question it. If we just see beauty, beauty, and more beauty, we're in this funny bubble because there are different people out there. There are different kinds of beauty," he says. So take a fearless leap and just do it already, whether that's cutting bangs, going blonde, or chopping all your hair off. As Moore said after her transformative cut: it's just hair.
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