I’ve always had an infinity for fantasy and childhood tales…one of the fables that always comes to mind is Lewis Carol’s “Alice In Wonderland” & “Through the Looking Glass”. The inspiration for this collection was fueled by my imagination to reimagined the classic fairytale.

image by Genna Yussman Greene/ Absolute Studio

I wanted to create more of an avant garde interpretation and chose only a few of the standout characters to develop for this collection. The obvious selections, Alice and the Queen of hearts and I chose to do the Mad Hatter.

hair prep, Alice’s headers and custom earrings

Of course I enlisted the help of Genna Yussman Greene at our studio, Absolute Studio. She would curate the wardrobe as well as doing photography and Micah Severo would be the make up artist for this collection.

Of course preparation for this took a very long time; several months and several purchases of hair extensions from Ebonyline and Doctored locks with various lengths but I got a great deal on 22 inch hair extensions.

The hair took 6 month to prepare as I had a full schedule of traveling for shows and taking care of my clientele behind the chair. I would have to order several lots of hair extenisons wait for them to arrive.

I had to color all the hair prior to using them. They had to dry and be styled and I made from three front lace wigs all hand sewn. Top hair pieces that would adorn each model and wanted to take it to another level by fabricating matching earrings made of hair that would be worn by each model.

Lots of money was spent on hair and materials. I fabricated a metal base for the Queen of hearts. I would take large sheets of red hair and cut and roll them into roses. I mixed variations of red hues to layer and to show off the texture of the hair.

it’s all in the details…it’s all about the hair

Rachel’s I mean, “Mad Hattresses” big close up

I decided I wanted to book a female model of the Mad hatter/ Mad Hattress. For her hair I created a long black front lace wig of which I colored large panels of violet and blue. I again fabricated hair “Mats” by using Redken’s Control Addict 28 and an iron to fuse the hair together. Afterwards hair was cut into squares on which I made a patchwork hat using a active mesh base. Very lightweight but strong enough to support the shape of her hat. I also rolled hair like I had done on the Queens hair and layered them around the rim of the hat.

For Alice I created a blonde wig with bright yellow panels and a created this huge flower-like piece that was made from custom yellow mat hair. Folding and glueing the piece like an accordian. I played around with the yellow pigment to get variations in tonality.

The earrings were a lot of fun, tedious and required a lot of time and patients. I twist wrapped kanekalon hair around florist wire using a hot glue gun. After the pieces were done I shaped them and hand sewn them together to become pairs of earrings for each model to wear.

I’m obsessed with the wardrobe Genna put together. Dark hues with bright tones and brooches, textiles and safety pins were added to each model. She made sure to layer texture and distinction of each character quite obvious.

It’s all in the details. Discussing make up with Micah

We photographed each model on dark, velvet backdrops with props for a darker vibe. Cincinnati, make up artist Micah did beautiful, clean makeup. I love the bee stung lips he did on the queen of hearts.

For model selection I booked Olive Flick of Heyman Talent Agency to play Alice, Margarita Karizskaja to play the queen of hearts and Rachel Madison to portray the Mad Hattress.

The shoot took all day of ten hours and very cold as we were working in the month of December. Everyone did a fabulous job of transforming all the models into the characters.

All about the make up with Rachel and Micah

We were honored to have this collection in six page spread in the limited edition, hard copy holiday collection in Faddy Magazine in Italy. When I received my copy in the mail I had cried…I hadn’t seen our work in that format. After all the work, time and money this collection required it was all worth it seeing it in print. I am so grateful to this team.

Credits

Models:

Olive Flick (Heyman Talent Agency) @oliveflick

Margarita Karizskaja @margarita_karizskaja

Rachel Madison @officialrachelmadison

Hair / Creative Direction / Earrings | Matthew Tyldesley @hairbymatt

Photography / Wardrobe / Set | Genna Yussman Greene @gennayussman

Make Up | Micah Severo @micahsevero

Assistant | Tony Welscher

Official making of video for “Wonderland Holiday”

I love men's hairstyling and fashion. For this collection I was inspired by men's hairstyling from the past: 1950's and 1990's and the energy of big city life. With every photoshoot comes an amazing story but they are not without their own set of challenges that is always a learning curve.

For this collection I booked photographer, Steve Squall. I hired Steve last year to photograph another collection and worked on several published editorial spreads in the past. Steve does a fantastic job doing fashion photography and was a perfect fit for shooting a men's collection. I had on board make up artist, Isidro Valencia and Genna Yussman Greene on styling. I met Steve to discuss my ideas for the shoot and he loved the concept.

This is one of several collections I did for NAHA although it was not nominated, I was honored to have it was released exclusively by Bangstyle.

As I had mentioned earlier, photoshoots have challenges. I had all models booked and all was a go however I had an issue with a model that overbooked himself with his agency so I could not use him and on the day of model prep one of my models no showed. Fortunately I had lucked out and I was able to rebook both. I swear I have a photoshoot "Guardian Angel". Through it all you persevere and make it work with the team.

I practiced some of the looks on mannequins. I did some highlighting and tapered cuts along with various styling techniques. This would all help for the prep day with the models. I would be more inspired on prep day where I did both color and cut on the models and could work with their bone structures and skin tones.

The prep day was set a day before the shoot and lasted for seven hours. Ellis arrived and I decided to do an all over lightening process. I used Redken Flashlight with pH bonder. After getting him to a pale yellow I glaze his hair with Shades EQ glosses 07P, 09P and 09T.

I did a shear over comb cut on his sides and back and left the top length longer for styling.

On the day of the photoshoot I styled his hair with Hardware Gel 16 to create the finger wave.

On model, Justin I did a soft highlight using Redken Blonde Icing combined with pH Bonder. After processing I glaze the hair with 09T in Shades EQ gloss.

For his cut I did shear over comb on his sides and back and left a visible weigh line to build the silhouette.

Styling on the day of the shoot consisted of flat wrapping his hair with Thickening Lotion 06 with the Sam Villa Paddle brush. Hand styled with Move Ability 05 and finished with Control Addict 28.

On Micah's hair I did a heavy highlight with Blonde Icing and pH Bonder followed with a Shades EQ gloss in 07P.

For his cut I decided to do a faded mohawk using my Andis Clippers "Envy" and layered the top with my Sam Villa 7" shears.

The styling for the shoot day included paddle brush combined with hair dryer and Hardware Gel 16. Once hair was dry it was hear styled with Iron Shape 11 and 2" curling iron. For handstyling I used Mess Around 10 finished with Control Addict 28.

We shot early morning at Steve's studio. Lots of coffees and bagels kept us busy and content for a six hour shoot. I staggered models arrival times to give everyone enough time to prepare. We did wardrobe tests with each model to find the right look.

For make up Isidro did a fantastic job keeping the make up real clean with soft contour cheeks, lip balm and lots of highlighter to enhance model's cheeks and brow bones.