Skip to main contentI was asked to be a long-hair model at Belle Epoque Salon last night. Felicity, a big-shot celebrity stylist who styles models for national Fashion Weeks and MTV was going to be in town to teach a demo and also push Kevin Murphy products. I arrived at 4 pm and had my long, lovely hair raked through. Then I sat there while my hair was variously washed, exfoliated, masqued and styled, and sat around some more while a lot of people took pictures of my head. Here are some things that I learned:
1. Models must be very sad all the time. Zoolander notwithstanding, I think most people believe that being a model involves just standing around and having lots of people pay attention to you. That is wrong. Only paying clients get pampered. Models are tools. There's a lot of waiting involved. Also, it's disembodying to have your hair and skin assessed as if you're not technically present. The good news? Mine are excellent, apparently.
2. A lot of people consider stylists ditzes. They are not, and they're very bitter about this.more
3. Asking your stylist to make your long hair sleek and straight is WRONG. Have you ever seen a Vogue? Big and fuzzy is IN. Fashion says so. Would you question your dentist, if he told you that you needed a tooth pulled? No. So shush. You'll look FABULOUS!
4. Most professional models have terrible hair. That's because they live off Tic-Tacs and cigarettes, both of which they'll likely throw up before the show. I suspected this, but it was very satisfying to have it confirmed.
5. There are many tricksy ways that stylists get clients to spend money. I feel like revealing all of them would be to violate the terms of the Secret Cabal of Hair Stylists, but here is one: Sometimes, they will invent techniques just so that nearby clients will see and become intrigued. Everyone and their grandma knows how to do pin-curls, but have you ever seen them done with peace-sign fingers? Didn't think so! Doesn't that look cool? Wanna pay money for it?
6. A lot of things about High Fashion are hideous. For example, Fashionable Makeup looks like something that happened to you after three weeks in a Fight Club:
It was an interesting experience, but one that I'm unlikely to repeat. I'm a low-maintenance kind of gal, and I couldn't even think of any place that I'd go in Portland where this kind of hair and makeup would not be extravagantly conspicuous. Maybe a goth strip club, but where would I find an open one on a Wednesday night? This is not L.A., after all.
Everyone urged me to go out, because with my black-eye makeup and luxuriant, professionally-styled curls, I clearly looked exactly like Beyonce. Instead, I went home, put on my bathrobe, coated my luscious locks with invisible, but delicious, molecules of bacon grease as I cooked breakfast for dinner, and went to bed. I was starving and tired, and a Tic-Tac wasn't going to cut it.
WWeek 2015