What do you love about being a platform artist — what do you hate?
Generally speaking, it feels great to have an audience looking at you… its intoxicating! i love picking out the music and the story and all the research that goes into planning a theatrical presentation. and everybody loves it. But i hate the constraints of working for a specific company. at Premiere recently, they shut the lights out on my show because it ran a few minutes over which annoyed me, not to mention the company i was presenting for. rusk was pretty ticked off by it and it totally put a damper on my time at Premiere this year. But, even so, i got so many positive responses and people got a lot out of it. and i´m not a fan of loud booth shows either. Trying to jam it down someone´s throat while they´re walking by during a noisy trade show is so tacky and i really hate doing it. i´d like it to be more accessible, the way nick arrojo and Sam Villa do it — it doesn´t have to be tacky and loud, after all, there´s only so much you can soak in at a trade show and if everything is loud, nothing stands out.
Since we just left this year´s Premier Orlando Show what stuck out at you the most this year about the show — differences from years past?
what stuck out at me was that there is not a whole lot of newness going on. even the Stylist Choice awards: in looking at the product lines, there is nothing new going on. i feel like we are on the cusp of a new generation of ideas and people. Something new and completely different could really happen. it seems like as soon as all the great new ideas, like Pureology for example, get snapped up by big corporations, then the raw energy gets sucked out of them. Then the people that made it great leave too and what´s left? it´s time for a new generation of stars coming up that are younger, like Sam Brocato, who will usher in the next generation of hairdressing. who will be the next big thing? Besides me of course!
What inspires your ideas?
The main thing is my trend for tracing fashion: how can we use it and how does it relate to what a stylist does and what clients need and want? That´s my original point of reference and then i try to change it up and mix it up to come up with something totally new and different. when i´m creating a beauty shot for a photo shoot, i collaborate with the photographer and i always play on some kind of dynamic, a movement of the hair. it doesn´t just sit there…its moves.
A big part of your show hairstyling career was backstage on the runways in New York and Milan because of your love of fashion. What has that added to the way you style hair? How is that different from what you do on a daily basis?
my fashion runway experience, which started in new York with Saks, made me the stylist i am today. i have a lot wider scope now. on the runways you have a unique opportunity to customize the hairstyle to the fashion and what will work with that and you also get to know with authority what´s new even nine months beforehand which can influence your styles in the salon. like any trend, it´s the most extreme version of whatever that is. in the salon, we take the elements and put it in context for our clients. The skills i learned at the shows are the foundations of any good hairstylist´s bag of tricks like curling, braiding and blow-drying which i perfected and they are part of my hair vocabulary now. i got fast too, because of the pressure, but i got the fastest by teaching. what people don´t realize is that it´s not glamorous! For the big designer shows, a hairstylist is the least significant person there. even as the lead stylist, you are not always that important: The fashion stylists and the designer control everything. They can veto your ideas in a heartbeat and they´re not hairdressers so they don´t even know what they want. The test can last 20 minutes or two days! once you´ve done a few shows, you can use the designer cache on your resume, but i´d only advise keeping at it if you really love it because it can be expensive and exhaustive! an aspiring salon owner or stylist can go this route to create buzz for his work as much as to upgrade his technique.
What has being on Shear Genius added to your career — why did you want to do it? And what did you take away from it in retrospect?
i did it to gain exposure — and there´s no faster way to do that than TV! But what i really gained was exposure to the average hairdresser. So now when hairdressers come to see me, or come to my classes, they know who i am. i also did it to upgrade my resume. if you´re a performer, a teacher and an artist you have to constantly be doing something new. You have to remain vibrant and hopefully it builds and builds…
You´ve been nominated for a NAHA 9 times (7 in the past 3 years!) but you didn´t win this year-why do you think that happened?
i´ve been lucky enough to win twice — the only american who has ever done that! i won last year (2008) and in 2002, but i didn´t win this year and i have no idea why. obviously if i enter, i think it´s good, otherwise i wouldn´t put it out there. and that´s the risk you take isn´t it? when you enter these competitions, you´re putting your work out there. You´re sacrificing your ego to being judged by other people which is totally subjective. and i´m thrilled to have been recognized by the industry twice! That doesn´t mean i will ever stop trying…
So what´s next for Charlie Price?
Seriously, i want to win master at naha. i´ll enter every year until i´m too old to care anymore. i´d also like to win the editorial category. Those are my two current goals. i want to be labeled a master in the career i love and i want to win editorial because i teach so much about high fashion and work on so many photo shoots that it would just be a reaffirmation to be recognized for the work that i do for publishing and consumer magazines.
What´s the best advice you have for stylists wanting to get into backstage runway hairstyling in fashion shows?
if you love fashion like i do and want the drama of styling hair for the runway shows you really have to be able to take the heat! it´s very stressful and fast. There´s a lot of pressure to hurry up! if you want to get started in that, get in contact with local modeling agencies and offer to style hair for model test shots to perfect your craft. Get in touch with local department stores and malls that may run local shows you can get into. Get in contact with the local fashion design school that may also run shows of their own and to find students who are also starting out like you and doing test shoots and offer to do the hair. once you´ve got some little shows under your belt and lots of photos of your work, if you can eventually go to new York, you can interview with the hair and makeup agencies that get hired specifically to do the shows and photo shoots! it´s important to develop goals, like a three- or five-year plan of action. Start small locally with stores and boutiques and learn about working with people based on someone else´s concept (which is what hairstyling for a fashion designer is all about…their concept). i did it for so many years before i actually went to milan and new York. it´s a mind-blower when you actually get there. it´s not glamorous like you think it is (which is the same thing for a platform artist.) There´s just so much brain damage before you finally get on stage!
What hair style trends do you see for Fall?
The word is STronG. i see new stronger cuts. i feel like long fluffy and long straight hair has been done — its just not the most exciting thing to talk about even though lots of women love having long fluffy hair! So we try to find a new way to change the feeling. i also see a lot of red… bright fashion colors will affect the hair color profoundly. There will be a whole new slew of hues.
What type of hair do you like to cut the most?
The Bob is my all-time favorite hair cut-short through the cheekbone. it´s a timeless beautiful look. and i love to cut the Shag. it´s the strongest ‘no-style´ hair cut there is. The way Jane Fonda wore her Shag in the movie, Klute, was so sexy with a little rocker edge to it. and she wore it way back in 1970! i´m attracted to styles that stand the test of time — they look as good now as they did back then and vice versa.
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