Hair Apparent
The Age
Wednesday May 22, 2002
The winning hairdo-doers picked from a whopping 600 entries in the Victoria/Tasmania state final of the L'Oreal Color Trophy awards 2002 were announced at the hair industry's customary knees-up on Monday night.
More than 700 assorted hair people milled at Southbank's Events Warehouse before six of them were picked and plucked for the spotlight. It was all very jolly and sporting, but so intense is the competition in this industry now that another hair award seems to materialise every year to meet demand. The L'Oreal Colour Trophy is one of the most coveted, judged by a panel of experts from South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, and ultimately, in the national final (coming up in Melbourne in August), by hairdressers from Italy, Britain, France, Japan and the United States.
The Victoria/Tasmania state finalists whipped up the sort of complicated hairdos that strike terror into the hearts of DIY advocates.
Colours were layered and "shattered" and distributed with the aesthetic sensibility and technique of a fine artist: "This short dramatic bob (is) created on a canvas of dark brown and an intense panel of copper-red and fuchsia to frame the face" (Biba, Fitzroy)."
Numerous tones of blonde are shattered through an icy mahogany base, highlighting the layers" (Toni & Guy, South Yarra). "Three panels of contrasting colors add texture and definition to a feathered, unstructured cut." (Gabriella Pizzo, Xiang Hair, Greensborough).
Universal trends in hair styles have also "shattered" and "feathered" in recent years, so that the curls so lauded during Melbourne Fashion Festival are as de rigueur as the smooth scrape-back, the braids and fuzzy plaits of Australian Fashion Week, and the perpetually classic sleek sheets of poker-straight ear-lobe or shoulder-length hair that bob up in every other fashion show.
Our Victoria/Tasmania state finalists did have more than one trend in common however: the complicated daubing and blending of colour, and the broken textures of both long and short styles. Hairdo silhouettes were indeed intricately "shattered" and "feathered", giving them a softness and irregularity that could be dramatised or altered completely with a dollop of stiffening or defining product. In all, it was this versatility, the "anything goes" styling, and obvious reverence for the way light plays in hair carefully doctored to absorb it or throw it back, that is just a tad awe-inspiring to one who colours her own and has a mate chop it from time to time. Congratulations, do-doers.
AND THE WINNERS ARE: STYLES PICTURED ABOVE: Mariesa Ferraro of the Toni & Guy salon, St Kilda and Alex Soriano of The Do, St Kilda won individual finalist awards; James Tassoni of Smik Studio, St Kilda was runner-up; Third year apprentice Sheridan di Pietro, also of The Do, and fourth year apprentice Gabriella Pizzo of Xiang Hair, Greensborough Plaza, won Next Generation awards; The Biba salon in Fitzroy and Toni & Guy, South Yarra, were state salon finalists.
© 2002 The Age