Hairdressing as entertainment might sound like a Pythonesque joke in this country, but in Detroit it's the real deal. Sean Louth discovers Hair Wars
Hairdos that that celebrate American football teams, resemble guitars or embrace every colour of the rainbow - at once - are the stuff of the fantasy that is Hair Wars, the most outrageous show on the American competitive hair styling circuit. And these examples are overshadowed, often literally, by coiffeurs blowing bubbles, featuring a working barbeque or hosting a bowl of Japanese fighting fish. Nothing succeeds like excess.
Hair Wars has now been immortalised in a book of the same name containing photographs by David Yellen and supporting text by Joanna Lenander, a Swedish-born, New York-based fashion and design writer. The latter provides the background to the phenomenon launched 20 years ago in Detroit by David Humphries, advertising copywriter by day, club party promoter by night.
Humphries, better known as Hump the Grinder, would theme his parties and, perhaps inevitably, one of them was hair. It was an instant success and repeated week after week. 'It got kind of crazy, and more and more people heard by word of mouth and came along to take part.' The bandwagon of enthusiasm encouraged hair stylists to push their creations to ever greater and more outre heights. 'You can't do this (kind of work) in the salon,' Hump remarks dryly. 'These people have big egos and plenty of talent. Besides the hairdos, they would dance and rap, and hire fashion designers to provide their outfits. But it was always pretty friendly and never about prizes or money. It was about bragging rights.'
Nevertheless, many of the talents promoted by Hump gained cult status and finessed their fame into further income, giving clinics at hair conventions, producing instructional DVDs and establishing their own branded lines of hair care products.
But producing the Hair Wars show is an expensive undertaking. 'Initially we were doing 10 or 12 shows a year, about one a month,' says Hump, 'but I cut back to four or five a year for financial reasons. I finance my own shows, and we find it difficult to get sponsors or advertisers like Pepsi on board. African-American beauty products are the biggest part of the beauty market but Madison Avenue (American advertising's nerve centre) doesn't understand that. If they're trying to raise the black dollar, we have a big clientele.'
Dream project
David Yellen discovered the phenomenon at a spectacular show in the Apollo Theatre in New York . 'I didn't know anything about these events until Johanna told me about them,' he recalls. 'So I made a pitch to Life magazine and they agreed to provide financial support. I had no idea what we were getting into. I was blown away - how could you not be? The inventiveness of the stylists is incredible.
'Many of the hairdos are animated, so a remote-controlled helicopter might take off from a model's head. And it might not always land where it was supposed to, which only adds to the sense of enjoyment. Another stylist, Little Willie, has made a speciality of including zippers in his styles. These unzip to reveal a bottle of champagne inside, or a miniature television or a live snake.'
Yellen eschewed his regular style for the project, selling the idea of formal portraits with Rembrandt-style lighting. He and his collaborator went on tour with Hair Wars, following the show to Chicago , Los Angeles , its home in Detroit and other cities. 'I took the same muted cyan background and lighting rig on the road. I used a 4x5 Toyo and a Kodak DC1600 back.
'Editing Hair Wars was hard, because the number of pages was limited and a lot of good stuff had to be left out. Although I'm not really a documentary photographer I took some behind-the-scenes backstage images but we were unable to include them.'
And then there are the ones that got away. 'Some of the best, most spectacular hairdos were never photographed. The stylists have big egos and they're so particular and so anal about their creations that as soon as they sense a decline in quality they destroy them.
Family affair
Hump emphasises the democracy of the event. 'You don't have to be a supermodel to be in our shows. We represent every part of the community. Few of the models are paid professionals, most are the stylists' friends and family members. They come in all shapes and sizes and from all backgrounds. One thing unites them - they all want to look beautiful.'
Lenander reiterates the point in her foreword: 'The models attitude is never clownish or ironic. The woman wearing a guitar or giant barbeque on her head still wants to look sexy and beautiful. This is partly what gives the event such style and panache. Overall, the models' efforts are close to heroic. They sit through long hours of hairdressing and make-up, walk in anatomically antagonising shoes and costumes, and successfully balance several feet of hairdo.'
There seems to be no limit to the extremes the stylists aspire to. 'Anything goes,' says Hump, 'as long as you keep it clean and have fun.' The movement's founder has considerable ambitions. He envisages the 'entertainer-hairstylist' as a new kind of celebrity, drawing huge crowds to live events, and feted in the same way that fashion designers are today. But it hasn't happened, not yet anyway - Hair Wars has been on the road for 12 years now, but for the most part it's still underground.
That it will ever hit the mainstream might seem improbable but Hump has experience for inspiration. 'I worked on a tour for New York rappers in 1984. Back then people didn't understand rap because they didn't know the history of it in New York . Everybody said it was a fad that would blow over.' Rap is more entrenched today than ever. As Hump says: 'You've got to dream to the extreme.'
Hair Wars, photographs by David Yellen, is published by Powerhouse Books (ISBN: 978-1-57687-399-1) priced $40.
Source: © Incisive Media Investments Ltd 2007
Hair Wars Website: www.hairwarsustour.com
