I am a hairdresser and student of fine arts. This semester I am in an expanded studio class that requires us to build a moquette of the Exit gallery at school. The first assignment using it was:
if money were no object what would be your dream installation?
I think of my career, and things that interest me, one idea in particular haunts me for the past two years; the fad Ombre.
Ombre is literally translated as gradation in french. It is the appearance of having dark roots into light ends on ones hair; in other words it is having roots. I always wondered what it would be like to have an apocalypse where people could not afford to get their roots done at the hair salon, and I have joked about it before calling it the possible "root generation." Ironically enough in this time of economic crisis we have found ourselves in this root generation, although it is not indeed because we can't afford it, we are paying for it and giving it a fancy french name which also in spanish is slang for "Hey Man," add an h making it Hombre (the h is silent). Ombre is the process of painting on a dark color, nearly black, onto the roots and using 2-3 colors each varying in lighter levels to gradate the tones into that of blonde at the ends. The process can take anywhere from 2-6 hours and costs anywhere from &100-$300 depending on factors like: length of hair, existing color and density. Ironically this is an international fad in a time of international economic crisis. I find a strange connection between the fashionable style of having dark, "trashy" roots and the current financial state of our world markets. It is a direct reflection of where we would be if there were somehow an apocalypse not allowing people to see their hairdresser, and yet clients are actually requesting this look, paying tons of money for it. Magazines advertise it as actually making older women appear younger. Hogwash I say. Whether I like the look or not is not important, but it is worth looking at from a deeper perspective than allure or vogue can see it. It is worth questioning where our standards of taste come from and I pray the fad ends soon, leaving it to those few who choose to be edgy and different.
The Idea is that viewers would walk into the gallery space and be surrounded by Ombre.
It lines the walls and is everywhere, much like it is in the real world. Below are some photos of my process. I used Blonde human hair wefts 18inch long and Wella Color touch. 3/0, 6/0 and 7/4 with 1.9% volume.
I painted the gradation from dark to light onto the wefts and washed them out in my bathtub. Then I lined the walls of the maquette gallery space and made a sign of hair and fashion studs. It is a show about trends.
Photography and Gallery Maquette by Chelsea DeVere
