Why is this new hair trend happening? New York Fashion Week runway hair for Spring 2014 was all too often greasy, stringy, slimy? Please. It’s ugly. Mere mortals will not wear it and if they do, they should be shot at dawn! Where are your heads dear hairdressers, dear hair product manufacturers, dear fashion designers, dear fashion stylists? So now, ugly stringy greasy hair, which makes no sense whatsoever, joins boring and overly messy nothing and mid-parted scraped-back unflattering hair on the NY Fashion Week runways. Ouch.
By boring, I also mean all those ponytails, and load of nothing non-hairstyles which are no-brainers for all concerned – the easy-peasy way out of having to create or show something just a little bit interesting, something … new. Even if a detail. If fashion designers designed fashions with no new news season after season, the press would descend on them like a ton of bricks. But most of the press just go on giving space to ponytails, nothing hairstyles with no news value, and now to ugly greasy hair no one in their right mind should show. Ouch.
Are fashion designers just lazy, not caring about their overall fashion image much, or scared stiff hair news will take away from the fashions? Surely having every model in a show with the same hair takes care of that? Are lead hairdressers doing too many shows and not presenting any wonderful hairstyles a fashion designer can’t resist, can love madly? And what’s with the press (consumer, online and professional press) giving space to so much dreck? Ouch.
Yes, I did cover a few shows with interesting hair, but not many. Stay tuned for some stylish hair in my January Peluquerias column and soon on www.helenoppenheim.com – a website full of inspirational hair ideas from the 60s to the present., with over 2,000 photos. But no ponytails!
xxxx to everyone who posted on this.
Truth at last! Everyone sees it and thinks it… Helen, thank you for saying it!
Hmmm…my thoughts exactly. In my world of Hair it is an Art. The style should speak to you, take you somewhere, provoke a feeling or expression. A hairstyle should not be a distraction or focal point … I don’t find much to love in a ponytail or disheveled look. Regardless, I love you all and admire you for even getting to do hair at MBFW. HairVisionary ~ Artist Thank you Helen
Helen-
I have to TOTALLY AGREE! The misuse of too many greasy products just makes it look like you haven’t even bothered to wash your hair, nothing “fashionable” about that! and enough of the ponytails already! is that the best they can do? Are they just a poor excuse for the lack of any good ideas? Keep up the good work Helen!
Always a pleasure- Ezel
Ezel. Thanks for Comment. You should do a a hair show or two next season. You have lots of great ideas and I suspect you could inspire a fashion or designer or two to use at least one. Not easy. Most know what they
want. But there must be some out there open to something special.
Bang on. Well done Helen. Let’s not mince words (You were never good at that!)
It is a golden opportunity for someone. Oh to be 19 again!
Well, I have just had to take a break ’cause I’ve been working on a couple of tv shows. Otherwise I would have been there pushing the limits. If I see one more chignon or ponytail, urgh. Next season, I’ll try to get there & change it up.
Hi Helen,
I have to agree with you. Ponytails and Fashionweek… the running joke! The models might as well do their own hair.
How does this effect our business as professional hairstylists when our clients see ‘thrown-back, dirty, lived-in hair’ as the trend for Spring 2014′?
Thank you Helen for taking a stand 🙂
Helen, THANK YOU< THANK YOU!….. not only are the stylists doing ponytails and the media covering them like they were pretty but to see tutorials on how to do ponytails in the trades when any little girl over 5 years old knows how to tout one in, is simply the acceptance of mediocre as good! Thank you again…..I thought I was Don Quixote yelling about this.
Thanks for support Brian and DaniellE. True, some lead hairdressers do so many shows it makes it almost impossible to be creative in many of the shows, however creative they may be.
Also many don’t fight for an idea. As some do. But often it is the Fashion Designer and/or Fashion Stylist who don’t want any creativity and have strong ideas about the hair, which are all too often no ideas, like the ponytail. This even when a hair care product company is sponsoring and paying thousands – to do a ponytail or boring hair! It’s a viscious circle. Why bother if the press write about whatever anyway?!!! Time to change …
Yes, Michael, even a 5 year old knows how to do a ponytail and having to watch a tutorial how to do one is insane.
Randy, I forgot the word “dirty” – yes that is was a word used to describe the hair. Thanks.
Hahahah Helen…I was thinking the same thing. All of the pictures the magazines have been posting on Facebook I didn’t quite understand. There were a few that Tigi did that I liked but the ponytails are no brainers…come on…
xoxo
DJ
Dear Helen, Thank you for being BOLD. This truly had to be said. The hair on the runway’s is very uninspiring! This is tragic, as we are seen as one of the most Creative industries in the world…Is it all about a quick fix and a need to say, (I do hair for New York Fashion Week)?? There appears to be very little Pride in the work, kind of thrown together, with very little thought. Call me Old Fashioned, but i see a need for more Preparation and Creative energy, to regain the ‘Respect’ that our wonderful Industry so richly deserves. Oh, on a final note..I am so over the 95 variations of This Seasons “Ponytail”.
More ‘Lead to your Pencil’.. Keep the Faith.
Kindest regards & Respect, Brian Grieve, Hair Artist, Educator, Creative Director, Dedicated & Passionate.