work.

This is a Toni&Guy cut I learned in my New Talent Training @Altamoda.

CUT: Shattered Graduation, Toni&Guy Classic Cuts. I hear this collection is available in a book, and on DVDs. Maybe they're sold together. Not my job.

STYLING: Bumble & Bumble Prep and Styling Lotion (love both). Finger-dried at the roots, against the hair's natural pattern where you want volume or movement, with the pattern where you don't (this saves so much time). I used a flat brush to move the hair from side to side in the back, and then just leafed it down in the front, brushed and dried upwards on the top. A messy version of Paul Mitchel's "flat-wrapping." Moving the hair side to side in the back along the head shape gives it a perfect amount of curve under the head and lays awesome on the neck.




Every week, sometime every other week, Phillip made all the New Talent (new stylists and assistants) get a model with straight hair willing to do the haircut he'd chosen for us out of the Toni&Guy "Collection Cuts".

This week (8/13/09) I remember I had no model right down to a half hour before class. I went across the street to the only place where I could hunt someone out, the grocery store downtown. The only grocery store downtown.

In the cereal aisle I passed Elizabeth, who was seriously analyzing the ingredients of something healthy looking. I actually think I walked away and came back and circled her again. I figured the only way to propose something like this on such short notice was to just say it.

"Hey, I'm Gunnar, I'm a stylist across the street at Altamoda. Anyway, I need a model for this class at the salon in like 20 minutes and you just happen to have the perfect length and type of hair I need. Can I get you to be my model?"

I showed her a picture of the cut, and of course she hesitated for a minute or maybe just over. Like 80 seconds. I was playing it super cool, but approaching people in the street... Well, I mean, I've done it. Just, never sober. I was desperate for her yes, and I got it.

The cut was an amazing variation of a traditional haircut. In school things were kept simple, but here I was learning to bend all the rules and make your own haircuts. And being with all these people, my age, learning their own version of what I was learning. I got to see 4 people do this haircut in a different way. These classes became priceless to me.

Elizabeth and I lost touch for a while. Then, she came into the salon on a Saturday a few months ago and had just gotten an awesome promotion. She was moving to Dallas, Texas wanted me to do her hair one more time (some awesome red highlights on a really dark red-brown, almost black, actually.)

I met Elizabeth only a couple weeks after I got my license. I'm not sure if she noticed, but that night I had the time of my life. Learning a new part of this craft I perform with my hands. Meeting someone so special in an experience that was part of my job.

What I need the more than a model that night, was to meet someone who saw the world I did. Elizabeth was a smart and hard-working, beautiful woman in a city where many women I met aimed for a husband instead of a career.

Hopefully somewhere along my travels I can track her down and maybe even do her hair again.

Gunnar