NYFW S/S 10 final wrap up

It was only a few days ago that I arrived home from New York, but it seems like a world away now. I had the most amazing time creating some fun hairdos on incredibly beautiful girls for amazing, talented designers. i think my all time favourite backstage experience was Betsey Johnson. Held at New York's awe inspiring Plaza Hotel on Central Park, the DJ busted out Beastie Boy's hits, and Betsey sprinkled petals around the room, while the hair stylists had fun building, big, mad hairstyles. The brief from the lead hairstylist Peter Gray, was literally, go mad. have fun, the bigger the better.

The Tadashi show was a little more controlled, with lead stylist Rodney Cutler looking for a youthful, relaxed look to the hair. Hair was sprayed with Redken Workforce 09, then twiwted and heated with a dryer before being brushed out to create a airy, cottony texture. The it was simply twisted and pinned low behind each ear before being twisted again as a whole into a chignon at the occipital bone.

Brazilian Designer Carlos Miele showed a sexy and sophisticated range complimented by elegantly dishevelled hair. The hair was was set on large curling irons and then brushed out to give a light carefree wave.

Backstage at NYFW with Redbull

Another amazing day of fashion and hair at NYFW for the S/S 2010 collections today. The day started early with prep for Australian designer Tony Maticievski's show. The collection was stunning with catwalk couture gowns in distressed neutral tones coupled with a super cool hairdo. Lead stylist, one of New Yorks finest and Australian expat the legendary Rodney Cutler designed a chic, rock'n'roll frech twist with a textured coif on top. The hair was pulled back sleek and smooth on the sides with a shiny natural finish and secured with an elegant twist at the back. then the top was backcombed and placed section by section into a dramatic messy high coif. The whole look was finished with flowers and brooches in the hair.

Then there was the Rebecca Taylor show. It's so exciting to see Kiwi designers showing at the pinnacle of fashion and she is a real sweetheart too, so it makes her success even nicer. The hair was gorgeous. It was quite severe with a hint of cuteness, which really offset the fun nature of her collection. Lead stylist Dai Mashishita designed a chignon look with an edge. The hair was first smoothed at the roots and midlengths with straightening irons, and then parted severely down the middle and pulled down and back into a ponytail at the nape. any flyaways were smoothed out by sprayin Redken Workforce 09 onto our hands and lightly smoothing it over to keep the hair looking natural and product free. then the hair was formed into a bow shaped chignon at the nape using elastic to secure it rather than pins. All in all it was a very tricky hairdo to do especially on the Senagalese girl with afro hair cut into a short crop!!!

Red Bull Takes you back again

My second day here at NYFW S/S 10 (abbreviating now!) and I spent the day at Karen Walker's show. It was so nice to have a rest from doing hair and just be interviewing and taking pictures. I got a great interview with Karen and a good look around backstage on camera, and if all goes well it will be on TV in a few hours (technology allowing!) (how many parentheses and exclamation points can I use in one paragraph?!)

My new favourite redhead was on the KW show again today. The hair was beautiful, shiny, healthy and natural looking with a slight polish.

Hair was blowdried smooth, and then lightly bent around a large curling iron to create a polished but slightly dishevelled look.

Red Bull takes you Backstage at NYFW

After a solid six hours sleep I seem to have shaken off the jetlag that was making all the words on my screen look like swimming ants. And so I'm now able to share with you some of the highlights from backstage at New York Fashion week Spring/Summer 2010 collections.

Yesterday I worked on two shows, The first was Twinkle, where the hair was set into beautiful floaty glamourous waves. The Lead stylist, John Ruidant called it a rock'n'roll look and many of the reporters thought he was saying duck'n'roll. There was the usual chaos and mayhem with girls arriving late, hair wet from the rain, acting like divas, but John was calm and all in all the hair was really beautiful. The makeup was interesting. Orange lips. And when asked by a beauty editor what the colour was called a makeup artist replied simply 'orange'. succinct.

The next show I went to was Cynthia Rowley. The hair look was a 'sci-fi/punk' look according to the lead stylist Bokhee. although, I thought it was pretty much a fifties look. The hairstylists were struggling to share the leads vision as the look seemed to evolve over the prep time. After two hours, only 5 of the 18 girls were finished. And with only half an hour to showtime, we were still waiting for over hale of the models to show up. And it was raining. The sort of heavy New York rain that is the nemesis of everyone on the beauty industry.