Feb
27
Vu Montgomery at Paris Couture Week
Filed Under Trends & News, Hairstyles: The Good the Bad & The Ugly
See the full article at Bellevue.com.
Stylist Vu Montgomery, director of education at Bellevue’s Obadiah Salon, fulfilled a longterm dream when he worked backstage as part of Armani’s hair styling team for Paris Couture Week. Montgomery was handpicked by the renown celebrity hairdresser Oribe, to join his team backstage for the January 25, 2010 Armani Prive Show.
Being chosen by Oribe, one of fashion’s most influential hairdressers, to join his styling team at the show made Vu feel like he had just been awarded the highest honor, “like winning an Oscar”.
Practice sessions, lasting up to 10 hours for days before the show lent Vu a new sense of humility as Oribe and Mr. Armani himself would reject hair that wasn’t the picture of perfection. “Armani is about perfection, the hair had to reinforce that.”
He found accessing his inspiration easy. According to Montgomery, he looked around the room and found himself in the company of stylists just like himself; hardworking, passionate, visionary. “That is what inspires me, passionate people,” he added.
The new online version of Beauty Launchpad is showing a number of sleek and imperfectly-perfect French rolls and twists by Ms Amsale of bridal collections fame andChristos, with an equally valid expertise in all things wedding. The sleek work is somewhat untailored with the echoes of the stylist’s fingers clearly visible in the finished looks.
When a beautiful woman puts her hair up in such a fashion, it is both stunning and inviting. These two practitioners of such refinements are reawakening a magical expression of feminine beauty, and we wish to see more.
These looks are reminiscent of the rolled looks of the early 1990s, when stylists were exploring updos meant to be tributes to Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday - after the Vespa ride and after the scene at the dockside brawl. Ciao, baby!
It has been a long month since we last spoke to each other through this blog or the Capelli d’Oro website. We were not idle during the waning of 2009. During the holidays, this author and associates were bringing a new web relationship to life.
Capelli d’Oro will begin to assist salons and beauty companies with the creation and maintenance of websites. We will work with the company that created and maintains our own site: TechMondo – a company that has grown from a Seattle Washington network infrastructure company to a northwest web and media outfit.
We are also increasingly involved in the evaluation of independent professional salon and spa products and more product evals will appear in our site.
We are also looking to include more work of stylists, makeup artists and photographers from the northwest to our site and are actively soliciting photographic fashion work from such artists.
2010 promises to be a good year for Capelli d’Oro and we look forward to growing our small family of contributors and artists in order to provide a voice to the independent hair and fashion movement in the northwest.
Talk with you soon!
This writer did something he had not done in ten years. He attended a hair show with the Altieri Brothers and assisted the Brothers in their backroom. He lost five pounds, felt like an eager apprentice and was in constant motion for the two-day show. The techniques he learned will be a part of his salon coiffures and his classroom work.
The show, produced by the BeautyBros of Oregon, was a lot of fun and extremely educational. On stage also was Alan Benfield Bush, who is one of the true greats in our business from his partnership with Vidal Sassoon, his development of Condensed cutting and his inspirational methods of teaching the fine art of hairdressing.
Thanks to the Altieri Brothers, Alan Benfield Bush and the BeautyBros. Look for the profile of this energetic Oregon distributorship in the coming weeks on our main site.
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The Red Door Spa at The Bravern, Bellevue, Washington is opening a 6,000+ square foot state-of- the-art facility in September 2009 and will feature nine treatment rooms, gorgeous manicure stations, pedicure thrones and a hair salon under the auspice of the Red Door’s Creative Director, Zahir Ziani.
Our main site, Capelli d’Oro, has an interview with Zahir, along with a how-to article on one of his delightful hair cuts. We invite our readers to enjoy this introduction to the talents of Zahir Ziani, as well as to enjoy the Red Door Spa when it opens in just a few weeks.
Expect the Red Door to provide a complete menu of spa and salon services including signature skincare, massage and body treatments, nail services, hair styling, makeup artistry and more. The spa will be housed in the same retail mall as Neiman Marcus. This retail center places Bellevue amongst the elite destinations for shopping on the west coast and will be an intergal part of the Seattle experience, along with visits to the Seattle Center, Music Project Experience, Pike Place Market and Kirkland Waterfront.
This blog is dedicated to news and information for the salon and stylist. Many of you are interested in information on how best to use digital media (the web, blogs, digital photography, video creation, marketing materials, email) to advance in the marketplace. Capelli d’Oro has - for the summer of ‘09 - been engaged in learning a set of skills to help you in your journey. We will publish articles on how to use new technology to streamline and market your salon and skill sets.
I am sitting in a class at Bellevue College on how to integrate your blog with MS Office Word via Sharepoint 2007. Sharepoint is a technology which may allow salons to launch blogs in a way that does not require a great deal of new learning - just use the usual Microsoft Office Word skills.
I had best pay close attention - we are learning wikis in Sharepoint now - but will report to you as more is learned.
Advocate Training
July 13th, 2009
Hilton Coast Hotel, Bellevue WA
We, at Capelli d’Oro, attended the Altieri Brother Advocate training as consummate professionals: detached and critical. Our question was: how does a one-day educator training work? Might our readers use these methods to train their own stylists?
The Altieri Brothers conducted such an intense and inspirational training that the two of us from Capelli that attended – writer I and photographer Daniel Lassman – were swept up in the excitement. We learned more about our business in this one day than in months of other trainings. We are, proudly, now certified Altieri Brothers Advocates. As journalists, this may be a breach of professionalism, but I can attest this is one of the proudest day in my career.
They answered every question the attendees had about the art of education. The attendees were concerned about their abilities to get in front of an audience, demonstrate effectively cutting styling and deliver product knowledge. They were concerned that they would not be perceived as authoritative nor be accepted by the larger body of industry trainers. The Altieri Brothers laid all these concerns to rest. They gave the attendees tools to work comfortably on platform and to demonstrate diamond cut work.
Seattle clothing designer, makeup artist and hairstylist Erin Skipley has accrued an impressive body of editorial work both in the Northwest and internationally. Erin has a website that features her work and is also predominate on the sites of such fashion photographers as Seattle’s own Leo Iam and Elizabeth Raab.
Erin is not only noteworthy for the quality of her efforts but also for the sheer volume of her work. She moves her residence between LA and Seattle, travels to all the major fashion centers, yet remains accessible and, according to all who who work with her, a delightful and talented addition to any shoot. In Hollywood, she has performed her art for television and movie premiers and trained under the awsome makeup artist Pati Dubroff. Erin actually did makeup and hair for one of our favorite groups, the Decembrists. This alone gives her street cred, in our opinion.
She invites us to follow her on a personal journey from the backstage at a TIGI show in Las Vegas to a celebrity shoot in San Francisco at her blog: http://erinskipley.wordpress.com/.
Capelli d’Oro invites you to view Erin Skipley’s work at http://www.erinskipley.com/ and http://www.bellatrixstudio.com/Main.html and http://leolam.com/ and http://www.elizabethraab.com/Portfolio/Photography.html
Cosmoprof and Westcoast Beauty are presenting the annual Fashion Focus 2009 show at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center June 7-8th. Featured vendors are Paul Mitchell, Joico/Iso, LOMA, and Rusk.
We are attending and recommend you go to learn from some of the best artists in our beautiful business, get inspired, and pick up some of the new and innovative tools and products.
Paul Mitchell is presenting Colin Caruso from Angus Mitchell’s very exciting stage team, Dave Hanen from LOMA is onstage sharing the skill of building rock-solid customer loyalty, Joico is sending their top show colorist Cherry Petenbrink, and Kevin McKowen, one of the most entertaining and inspiration career coaches, will be in attendance.
http://www.cosmoprofbeauty.com/shows.aspx
Marv Smith, along with Alternative Salon Products, the Hair Lounge presented the Muk-Ups in a show that paid homage to a stage full of all-stars.
The Hilton Hotel in Bellevue, Washington, hosted an event that was a long time coming. This event re-united a team of hairdressers who are, as individuals, brilliant artisans- but collectively, are a creative force.
The gala affair was accentuated with stunning creations of hair artistry, that included expansive concepts in cutting and styling. The styles presented left no stone unturned, going from neo-punk to classic sleek couture. This show had it all- from fantastic concept cutting by Richard Brassfield, R.J. Jones, Sasha LeBeau, Patty Sever, and special guest Peter Lee, to the artistic visions of Michael Hall.
To put an exclamation mark on the hair offerings, Tina Bueche, of Synapse 206, provided some resplendent visions in high fashion clothing. The fashions that Ms. Bueche provided, truly added some fire to the already smoldering looks that were revealed to the packed house.
This was a truly memorable event, that will be remembered and spoken of for years to come. 
All photography provided by Daniel Lassman.
These links may prove helpful:
Daniel Lassman, Capelli d’Oro 2009
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