Carolyn Fath
Renee Thomas (right) working with Mikha (top left) and Arati Shrestha to apply final touches to Rachel Svendsen’s hair and costume.
It’s 40 minutes to call time, when the models will line up for the Hair Affair catwalk. Backstage buzzes with activity — and reeks of hairspray. Long tables are laden with containers of makeup and bottles of product. Bobby pins litter the floor, and multicolored piles of hair extensions are heaped on tables and have drifted onto the floor.
The models look more like living sculptures than humans. After all, they’ve been holding still for hours while teams of hair and makeup stylists paint their bodies, affixing clumps of hair, glitter and costume pieces. The evening’s theme, Myths + Monsters, is playing out in interpretations that range from creepy to majestic.
Model Amanda Acker (a formidable Brunhilde the Valkerie) sits quietly while two RZ & Company stylists braid flame-red, floor-length extensions and fit her with a silver breastplate. A team from Studio Z Salon is turning Paolina Fosshage into a sphinx, painting her belly with black body paint and gold glitter as she tries on a pair of 8-foot-wide wings.
It’s the fifth biennial Hair Affair, one of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art’s most important fundraisers. The sold-out crowd is lined up at the Henry Street entrance, and some of them have taken the style cues: One man sports horns and sunglasses, another a giant pink bouffant. Well-heeled art patrons mingle with tattooed and brightly coiffed millennials.
I had stopped by RZ & Company Salon earlier in the day to watch longtime stylist Renee Thomas (a Hair Affair veteran) in the early stages of her creation. She was hovering over Rachel Svendsen, who has been her model for all five Hair Affairs. Svendsen, a nurse in real life, was wearing a full-length one-sleeved velvet gown — and tennis shoes. Her face was covered in a regal periwinkle, jewels attached to her eyebrows.
Thomas was already on her second can of hairspray, weaving Svendsen’s actual hair into a curved pyramid of extensions to create a version of Shangri-La, the mythical Himalayan temple. She paired up with another RZ employee, Arati Shrestha, who is from Nepal, to create a giant lotus flower (periwinkle petals ironed out of hair extensions called “wefts”) to frame Svendsen’s face. Atop her head, Thomas created a golden temple (not made of hair). Shrestha bought temporary tattoos and a special ornament back from her last visit to Nepal, all of which were incorporated into the design.
Thomas spends months planning her creations, beginning in December, when MMoCA solicits proposals from area stylists, who donate their time and supplies in exchange for the portfolio shots and publicity the event generates. “I think about it a lot,” says Thomas. “It’s gotten bigger every year, and it’s really creative. It’s definitely beyond the day-to-day. It’s not something you can repeat on clients.”
At final call, Thomas has finished attaching all the petals surrounding Svendsen’s face, which glows with the addition of tiny blue lights. Shrestha’s 18-year-old daughter, Mikha, helps with some of the final touches, wrapping Svendsen in a toile cloud embedded with white lights — the Himalayan mist.
Final coats of hairspray are applied as models move slowly and carefully down into a crowded hallway and elevator, which will take them up to the third floor to await their descent down the magnificently lit MMoCA lobby staircase.
In the lobby, the crowd is jockeying for views, balancing cellphones and wine glasses. As the models descend the staircase, steadied by male escorts from a local modeling agency, the crowd gasps, oohing and ahhing in appreciation. Passersby peer through the giant glass windows, getting a free show.
And finally, after months of fretting, dyeing, spraying and gluing, Thomas can relax. “It’s just such a great thing to be part of,” she says. “It’s an opportunity that doesn’t come around every day.”
Although an element of one-upmanship is certainly present, Thomas is happy that the event is a showcase for creativity and not an actual competition. “There are plenty of those out there,” she says, “but here we can just come together as professionals. I love to see what other people are putting together.”
Attendance at first Hair Affair in 2009: more than 300
2017: 475
Participating salons: 17
Farthest distance a material traveled: 6,900 miles (hair used by Studio Z Salon’s sphinx was shipped from China)
Most hair used in one design: Over 256 linear feet, in the Komiho DMZ by Renee Knight of Aveda Institute Madison
Tallest model: Tod’Tiana Thompson, designer and model for KRS Hair & Wax Studio, at 6 feet, 2 inches
Number of stairs the models descend: 88, or 3 stories
Small but mighty team: 1 designer and 1 model — Cha Cha Beauty & Barber
Power teams: 2 each with 9 designers and models — Union Hair Parlor and KRS Hair & Wax Studio
