Hairstylist to stars corresponding to Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Garner, Anne Hathaway and Kristen Stewart, Adir Abergel has been working with top-notch expertise for his entire life — simply not within the magnificence sphere.
“As a child, I fell in love with dancing,” Abergel mentioned. “I assumed that’s the place my life was going to guide me. I went on excursions with Brandy and carried out with Michael Jackson on the We Are the World tour. Funny sufficient, on the age of 10, I began blow drying all of my mother’s pals’ hair and doing colour for $5. That was after I began doing hair.”
Abergel’s transition into skilled hairdressing got here after an sudden detour, when an damage all however eradicated his prospects of becoming a member of the American Ballet Theatre. He discovered himself on the age of 15, having already accomplished his highschool necessities, again in his hometown of Los Angeles. “I heard this man named Arthur Johns was in search of an assistant. I didn’t know who he was, however previous to me, Sally Hershberger had assisted him, Jonathan Antin had assisted him. His sister began the Pussycat Dolls, so I labored with them later in my profession,” Abergel mentioned.
That early publicity to Johns’ clientele gave Abergel an unparalleled schooling in tradition. “I used to be a 15-year-old child working with Arthur on purchasers like Tina Turner, Chaka Khan, Olivia Newton-John, Julie Christie, Nancy Reagan and Betsy Bloomingdale. All of these unbelievable ladies have been a component of my life from 15 years outdated onward,” he mentioned. “It was some of the very best mentorship I ever received in my life. I actually understood that it was about constructing true relationships.”
These days, Abergel divides his time between the worlds of Hollywood and excessive vogue. He underscored that the issues couldn’t be extra completely different for every, however that he relishes each. “From Givenchy to Chanel to Gucci, they’re like an extension of my household,” he mentioned. “I’ve been in a position to break via solely Hollywood crimson carpets. When you’re engaged on a crimson carpet, you’re engaged on a person human, and you suppose of it like a lady having her marriage ceremony day. Like the gown, the hair can’t put on the girl. You need the girl to return via, and you could see her in three dimensions as a result of she’s being shot at each angle. She has to really feel inside her physique, so that you don’t need to push her outdoors of her limits.
On the opposite hand, working with manufacturers is about “making an attempt to convey what they’re making an attempt to promote — it’s actually concerning the imaginative and prescient of the style home, and telling a narrative via the lens of the model.” He can be a associate and inventive director of hair care model Virtue Labs.
“It’s an incredible new section for me in my profession, and I could be in everybody’s properties. It’s about how I may develop, how do I give extra of myself to extra individuals, quite than simply the few which might be in my chair day by day,” he mentioned. “Social media has completed that for me as effectively,” the place he counts practically 800,000 followers on Instagram alone.
Abergel views doing hair as an intimate trade between stylist and consumer, which is why the longstanding relationships along with his regulars — he’s been working with Witherspoon for the final 15 years and with Stewart since she was 13 years outdated — is crucial to understanding their wants.
“It’s about particular person expression, there isn’t any proper or fallacious,” Abergel mentioned. “If you need to observe a development, it’s stunning, however no development is a development inside itself. We are in a second of life the place we’re celebrating all textures of hair once more, and it’s so refreshing and stunning to have that expression and freedom. It’s all stunning, so long as there’s that particular person expression, and you are feeling highly effective and assured inside that.”
His inspiration doesn’t simply come from the ladies he works with, however from those that have preceded them. “There are loads of individuals who have influenced our society with unbelievable [hair] moments. When you consider Jackie O., you consider her hair,” he mentioned. “You take into consideration individuals like Cleopatra, Tina Turner and Diana Ross, the best way her hair is transferring in all places.”
Abergel’s lexicon of cultural references is broad and tied to nobody subculture or timeframe. “I take a look at not simply current popular culture, however all through the ages, and the significance of actually staying related inside all of that,” he mentioned. “Understanding the ’40s and the ’50s, the Edwardian and pre-Raphaelite [periods] — how hair has shifted, the significance of what hair represented round freedom within the ’70s.
“I actually give attention to freedom and individuality. I imagine hair is a medium that enables us all to have freedom and evolve,” he continued. “We are by no means the identical, and the haircut you preferred once you have been 20 just isn’t the haircut that you just’re going to love once you’re 30,” he added. “It redefines you, and it adjustments, and that’s the sweetness of all of it.”
The Artist’s Eye
Favorite Song: “Bag Lady” by Erykah Badu. “I grew up in L.A., going to public faculties, and ’90s R&B is simply what we listened to. When it comes on, it’s tremendous nostalgic for me.”
Favorite Choreographer: I grew up dancing traditional ballet, so Rudolf Nureyev was somebody who I cherished watching when he would choreograph a chunk. When you get a little bit bit older, you turn out to be a extra critical particular person. Dancing is a approach to hold my childlike essence nonetheless alive.
Favorite Art Medium: Definitely sculpture, I really like artwork normally and I really like individuals watching. I like artists which have a deeper reasoning that they carry to artwork, and loads of that has to do with sculpture: Louise Bourgeois, Cy Twombly, Rosha Yaghmai.
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