On a recent Sunday Atelier Emmanuel attended the framesi Spring/Summer evening event. It was held at the Palace Hotel in downtown SF and produced by framesi in partnership with SalonCentric (the professional products distribution operation of L'Oréal USA). The purpose of the event was to showcase new trends and techniques in hair design.
In terms of organization everything was very well orchestrated: the music, the lights, the service and the timing were in place, making the attendee experience easy. The demos themselves left us unimpressed, if not slightly horrified at times...
The doors opened at exactly 7 pm into a grande salle booming with the requisite electronic music, indicating that this was to be a vibrant and fast-paced atmosphere. Hostesses welcomed us with smiles, white roses, glasses of wine and appetizers. Scattered across a main stage and four satellite ones, a dozen models stood as still as props, while guests mingled.
After a bit of time for everyone to arrive, the electronic music lowered as did many of the lights. The main stage was spotlighted. Boyd Parris, framesi's North America Creative Director, stepped on-stage to open the show. In addition to Parris, the principal presenters of the evening were Jonathan Swaim for a color demonstration, Tom Mascarenas with a haircut and Lanette Dwyer with an Up-do demo.
Like anyone else, we like to be glamored at shows. And there was certainly a lot of verve to these demos. We could see that the framesi stylists knew their technique; but there was a certain aggressiveness to their style which was discomfiting.
There was maybe too much verve, in fact, as one stylist grabbed a thick ponytail of a model's hair and swiftly, unceremoniously, chopped away a good twelve inches of hair. It made for good television but it did not lead to a good outcome. Emmanuel later noted that there was a haircutting concept at work here: the idea is to twist long hair up into a ponytail, hold it taut, and then chop it. It’s possible to have it fall properly, but you need a lot of control to do this. And you need to know how to finish, afterwards.
Unfortunately this model came away with a decidedly unfinished style (une coupe trop sauvage, if you will). We came away wondering what we were being shown. That drama beats technique? That speed beats results? Meandering to the other stages, we found a healthy variety of styles. Again nothing that took our breath away.
We like structure, attention to detail and preciseness at Atelier Emmanuel. We found the framesi demos short on these. There are, of course, constraints to working in an event environment. No one wants to watch a 45 minute haircut on a stage. But better to prepare the model beforehand and then bring her onstage to illustrate a few key points.
If you are going from long to short, you cannot really do a good haircut in a short amount of time. To get rid of so much hair makes for a good show, but it does not teach much. A 10 minute presentation of a technique would have been more interesting.
The idea of going fast is an interesting one, in a demo setting but also with a regular haircut. In a demo, the more you prepare ahead of time, obviously the more you can demo quickly. In real life, a fast haircut begins with the concept in your mind. The better formed it is, and the more you know your client, the faster you can work. And going fast doesn't preclude finishing on the style.
The framesi event was good entertainment. However we were quite happy to come back to our salon the next day and focus on creating hairstyles that are structured and wearable. No matter how long they take achieve.
— attended by Emmanuel Noel, Nicole Siri, and Virginie Delplanque
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