Jake Thomson on Avant Garde Styling
Interview by Leanne Cutler, Hair Shots 2 The World
Jake Thompson
from Lunatic Fringe in Salt Lake City, Utah
4) What is your driving motivation to do Avant Garde hairstyling? Was there a person who inspired you? My driving force is creation! I love the creative process, start to finish, ‘is this attainable’ I always ask myself. I’m more really inspired by “things”. Things that make me think multi-dimensionally, things that allow my mind to dream in a world beyond reality.
5) How did you set your themes for your NAHA finalist collection? My collection was based around me wanting the viewer to “see inside my shape”. My color themes were based around tones of Exotic flowers.
6) What were the biggest challenges in creating the hairstyles and at the shoot? I started building my shapes/pieces 5 month before my shoot. So the challenges were few and far between on the day of the shoot. The challenge was finding models that could “sell” my avant garde looks! That is always the challenge when creating a collection!
7) Do you use wigs built into the model’s hair or both? What is your preference and why? On this collection I prepped their hair so I could have maximum volume before I utilized my pieces. I really don’t have any preferences; it all depends on how my collection is built. Sometimes I use only the models hair, and sometimes I only use wigs/pieces.
8) What is the role of photoshop in an Avant Garde photo collection? What is its place? It’s hard to say. Every creative out there has a different perspective of what is too much and/or not enough! It is a tool to use, try not to depend on one tool to get your point across!
9) How does completing an Avant Garde shoot help with your salon business? Does it help get dollars through the door? Yes and no, avant garde hair is art at its finest! You can use nominations/wins to get dollars through the door.
10) Do you apply any of the techniques and skills from this collection in your salon? Yes and no, the 1st portion of this collection I could use in the salon, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th portion of this collection was so intricate and time consuming that it would take too long to make it salon friendly.
11) What is your favorite hairstyling tool when doing Avant Garde hair? What are your favorite materials that you incorporate apart from natural hair? Home Depot is on my list of favorite places to go to get material. Tools I get from all over, there is no one place or tool that I use all the time. I’m inspired by the moment.
12) What are four tips that you would give to hairdressers wishing to do their first Avant Garde photo shoot?
1- find a photographer that is in your budget (keep in mind the photographer should know how to make the hair the “focus”).
2-models are almost more important than any other thing when shooting Avant Garde hair. They need to be able to sell the look.
3-take pictures of your avant garde pieces/wigs throughout the process. Use a simple mobile phone. The idea is to start to “see” 2 dimensionally. Or how a photographer “see’s”!
4-and when thinking/dreaming/mind-mapping about a collection, try to think about 3 or 5 different looks. It’s one thing to create 1 look; it’s another to create 5!
4.5-it’s not cheap, save a budget!
