New York Fashion Week: Men’s came back on July the 11th, with AXE as a sponsor for their third season. The runway for EFM Men’s Wear took place at 12:00 PM for which stylist Lisa Raquel was put in charge of the hairstyles.
The backstage of the Cadillac House, where the runway took place, was more spacious to fit the numerous models and styling team. Models were going in and out of the space in order to get their hair, makeup and attire fixed. Lisa Raquel, the head of the styling department made sure that the models were all picture-ready and and well prepared as she provided a joyous and easy going environment for the rest of the team to work under.
Here is what she had to say about the preparation and completion for the looks:
How did you prepare for the EFM Collection?
I met with the designer, and he decided that we wanted to go for an urban/tribal look. I liked the concept so we decided to work together. We really like the way it came together. The sides are very tight, we’ve kind of cleaned up some of the perimeters with clippers a little, the top has sort of a messy, natural texture. I’m doing five shows and this is one of the ones that I got assigned to. It’s very exciting, great designer too.
What is the process like as a stylist to prepare for this?
We get a few emails and some photographs. Sometimes we meet with the designers and do testings. It depends, every designer is different on what they want. My agent generally is the one in charge of getting me hooked up with a particular designer. They just tell us a little bit of the style that they want and I just start doing little research on how I can make that best suit their line, and what we can do as a team to make everybody look consistent because you are going to get all kinds of hair types and people. You kind of have to keep the look uniform. What’s really nice today is the tribal necklace thing they are doing, it really ties in the hair too. It really keeps everything looking the same and makes the hair even go together more with every guy.
What are some of the struggles you’ve had to face?
We have some curls so we’re trying to makes those tighter to the head, that’s one of the struggles. We’ve been using a couple of the AXE products for hair. I’ve been using their gel, their pomade, the Spiked Up Look is the gel that I’m using because it’s a little stronger, the Clean Cut Look is a pretty decently strong pomade.
Have you worked with AXE before?
Yes I have, they have something for everybody. It works well, but those two have been consistently good for everybody today, for keeping the sides nice and tight.
How do you and your team work?
We all just work together, if they need help they come to me or they bring me their final look and I see if it needs adjustments. We start pulling models as fast as we can to get them going. We have a guy here who is a really good barber so today I had a couple of the guys who needed haircuts to go to him to get cleaned up a little bit and I did a little edge trimming myself. He and I did predominantly most of the haircuts, there were two people that have worked in salons in the last little while that are really good with blow dries. We have three women so I had them blow dry their hair. I choose them to be the people to work on the women because they had that down, nice blow dries , pulled back. I went over and helped with the pony tails and roughed up the look a little bit to make it look more urban and tribal.
How long does this look take to achieve?
Each guy takes about 10 to 15 minutes for hair, for makeup I don’t know that’s a big job over there today. Some guys a little bit more because we’ve got a couple guys with really curly hair. It’s been a fun morning.
