I've seen a lot of strange things used backstage at fashion show — including straws and dental floss
— but at Chanel's Spring 2018 show today in Paris, hairstylist Sam
McKnight used a vacuum cleaner to create his perspex-covered ponytails.
Yes, that's right, a vacuum cleaner.
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The entire Chanel show centered around water. Designer Karl Lagerfeld transformed the Grand Palais into a lush jungle complete with hanging vines and real, trickling waterfalls. The models wore thigh-high clear boots and lush green and blue eye shadows — applied dramatically and paired with pink blush and glossy pink lips a la Guy Bourdin, according to makeup artist Tom Pecheux. Some of the models even wore clear rain hats — like the one my Baba used to wear, but way chicer.
"I took my inspiration from Karl's wonderful way with transparency," says hairstylist Sam McKnight.
"When I saw the sketches of the waterfalls set, I just felt that the
hair should feel like it had been misted by the falling spray, not
drenched." His styling process was simple: gather the hair into a low
ponytail and use his Modern Hairspray to dampen the hair around the model's face (which was further dampened by the water falling on the runway).
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But McKnight didn't stop there. He took the show's transparent theme even further by sliding the ponytails through a cylinder of clear perspex, which ended up not being such a simple task. That's where the vacuum comes in. "To get the ponytails inside the tube perfectly, with no snagging, we sucked them in with a cleaner," he explains. You can see his process in a video he captured below. It kind of reminds me of that viral video of a British dad using a vacuum cleaner to put up his young daughter's hair in the morning.
When it comes to getting models ready backstage at fashion shows,
time is of the essence, and McKnight's vacuum hack certainly saved his
team a lot of it. But I sure as hell never thought I'd be typing
"Chanel" and "vacuum" in the came sentence. But there's a first for
everything I guess.
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The entire Chanel show centered around water. Designer Karl Lagerfeld transformed the Grand Palais into a lush jungle complete with hanging vines and real, trickling waterfalls. The models wore thigh-high clear boots and lush green and blue eye shadows — applied dramatically and paired with pink blush and glossy pink lips a la Guy Bourdin, according to makeup artist Tom Pecheux. Some of the models even wore clear rain hats — like the one my Baba used to wear, but way chicer.
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But McKnight didn't stop there. He took the show's transparent theme even further by sliding the ponytails through a cylinder of clear perspex, which ended up not being such a simple task. That's where the vacuum comes in. "To get the ponytails inside the tube perfectly, with no snagging, we sucked them in with a cleaner," he explains. You can see his process in a video he captured below. It kind of reminds me of that viral video of a British dad using a vacuum cleaner to put up his young daughter's hair in the morning.
