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MURPHY’S LAW

IS KEVIN.MURPHY THE QUINTESSENTIAL AUSTRALASIAN HAIR BRAND?

YES, WE THINK SO. EARLY ON, THE MELBOURNE-BASED HAIRDRESSER

MADE HIS OWN PRODUCT, GAINED AN AMERICAN REPUTATION FOR

“BEACH HAIR”, LEARNT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FASHION AND ART –

AND LEARNT, IN A THEATRICAL SENSE, ALL ABOUT WIGS.

BLACK HAIR EDITOR GREG MURRELL CHATS TO KEVIN ABOUT STACK WINDS, ARTY PHOTOGRAPHERS AND STARTING AT THE TOP.

Greg Murrell: So Kevin, how long have you been in the hair dressing industry?

Kevin Murphy: Since November 1979. 30 years this year actually…

GM: How did the early part of your career get under way?

KM: My bosses were all Vidal Sassoon trained, they were very strict hair cutters and they said to me “If you can’t do it with a Denman brush, it can’t be done. I was like “But I really want to know how to do curls and that sort of thing.” And they said “No. You won’t ever need that, you won’t ever need to use that.” We weren’t allowed to use clippers, everything had to be scissor-over-comb, it was very, very strict. We were like human clips at that stage, you weren’t even allowed to use a section clip at that stage. I think them telling me that I couldn’t do it made me look deeper and find out how I could do it.

GM: It was the ethos of the time wasn’t it?

KM: It was the ethos of the time. It was pre-straightening irons. I remember we had to cut a bob from the front. I think the discipline of the cutting really helped with the discipline of my styling, so now instead of being all over the place I am very disciplined in the way I execute it.

GM: Yeah, that’s obvious…

KM: I have simple steps that need to be followed. I’m not so free. It might look free, but it’s not…

GM: There’s always a process isn’t there, behind anyone who is highly proficient at what they do. What about the dressing side of things. Who taught you that? Did you learn that when you became a session stylist or…

KM: Other hairdressers influenced me but I think it was trial and error. At school I probably listened more than I knew that I did. At school we had to learn to do ‘hair up’ things, we had to learn to do a victory roll, I think I was always interested in fashion and I was always pushing those barriers anyway. So my finishing technique is more due to experience. I did do a stint with the wig maker at the Melbourne Theatre Company and he taught me a lot of things about how to make wigs. I used to just watch him. He was this big German guy and he used to let me come in and just muck around in the studio. He taught me how to change synthetic hair and how to make certain pieces look real so I probably learnt a bit from him as well.

GM: Yes, some of those theatre people do incredible things don’t they?

KM: They do things like make wigs out of fishing line. He always had fishing line in a bowl of hot water making it into a wig. In theatre you have the distance thing, it is seen from so far away but you can still take those same principles. Also, my mum was a hairdresser too so I probably spent a lot of time watching my mum do her own hair…

GM: Have you seen the Nagi Noda hair hats?

KM: No…

GM: I’ll show you. Really incredible, like animal heads that are made out of hair by this Japanese hair artist…so, how long did you spend working as a salon hairdresser?

KM: I probably stopped working as a salon hairdresser about 1993…about 16 years or so…

GM: And you stopped with the intention of being a session stylist?

KM: I was a session stylist early on in my career so I went though my apprenticeship. I left my hairdressing career and started working in advertising, doing hair and make-up on photo shoots. I didn’t really like doing make-up to tell you the truth, I’m not really a make-up person but at the time you sort of had to do both. Then we had a recession in Australia so I stopped doing that and went back to hairdressing…

GM: Did the work dry up?

KM: The work dried up. In a recession the first thing that goes is hair and make-up. It was a pretty dastardly recession in Australia, but then again, recession means opportunity. All of the work dried up and on Chapel Street in Melbourne there were all of these empty shops so I went to the bank and said I really want to open up a hair salon. They were like “You’re kidding? It’s the middle of a recession.” I was like “No. It’s going to be great!” So we opened a salon in the middle of a recession…

GM: What was that called?

KM: That was called Kusco Murphy and I first made products for that. I made a shampoo for that salon purely because I was unsatisfied with the…I was unsatisfied with the packaging because I had this gorgeous salon and all of the products were saying “Dull. Dry. Lifeless.” And I thought “That’s not me” and I didn’t think it was for my clients. I didn’t want them to be in the shower with products like that so I made a shampoo for my salon only, then a friend of mine was working for Barneys in New York and she said “I really want to take your shampoo to Barneys in New York.” I was like “Yeah, go for it!”

I wasn’t expecting anything to come of it. I had made about 500 bottles at this stage. Next thing a fax arrives with these orders for eight Barneys stores and they wanted me to come over and do a training and I thought “Oh my God, what do I do?” So I went backwards and forwards to New York a few times to do trainings. I didn’t know you had to do trainings, when I was a hairdresser we just bought the shampoo, we only had two products, there wasn’t the product onslaught that you’ve got now…which I’m probably responsible for as well! [laughs]. I ended up having to sell the salon because I became too busy with the products, I sold the salon to Michelle Kusco and had to go to America. I had to go because I couldn’t afford the PR so I had to go to America, work for the magazines and then pass them a product. At that time, that was for me, the best way to promote it. In a short space of time I was working for US Harpers Bazaar. In the US you have to come in and work at the top, you can’t start at the bottom. You must come in at the top and work your way down. It’s the opposite of what you think it might be…

GM: I understand the coming in at the top bit but what do you mean by working your way down?

KM: The top work you don’t get paid any money for. There is all of the amazing kudos for doing it but you don’t get paid any money for it, the jobs that you get well paid for, that you are just combing the hair are actually the very mainstream brands…

GM: Understand.

KM: A lot of people think it’s the other way around. Something that is really simple, just a pony tail in the hair, that’s at the end of your career when you are making all of the money and then everything that is really creative, amazing and cutting-edge is all at the beginning of your career.

GM: Getting into being a session stylist did you just kind of know that you were someone who wanted to explore hair?

KM: In that realm, yeah. I wanted to style hair, I like cutting hair, but for me, all of my haircuts are haircuts that you can style and change. I want to change the characteristics of someone’s hair. If someone comes to me and says “Cut all my hair off!” I’m like [recoils in fear] “ I need a Valium!” because it’s really distressing for me, more so than them. I enjoy cutting hair but I enjoy styling and pushing those limits a little bit further, and the only way you can do that is through photography because you can style someone’s hair but then [if they are not photographed] they just walk away…you need that to be immortalised, and it’s that moment that is so great about photography.

GM: It’s a nice thing isn’t it, the work you do being recorded…

KM: And then it stays there forever…

GM: I have been having a little think about how to define your style and I came up with this word; Texturalist. I see your style as inspired by classic setting and tonging techniques..

KM: Uh huh.

GM: …but you are finding a nice modern, gentle relevance for that. Would you agree?

KM: Yes. My title in the company is “Texture Master.” It’s a bit of a dungeons and dragons thing; you have texture masters, then session masters, then style masters. Your session master is someone who can coordinate a photo shoot. Your style master is someone who can coordinate a show. Then you have the keys to Kevin Murphy; the golden key, the diamond key and the platinum key, and you wear them around your neck. Then you have clues. The clue to Kevin Murphy. The key to Kevin Murphy. It’s a bit dungeons and dragons as I said but I wanted to bring a different language. I didn’t want [staff] with the title] Education Manager. Awww [grimaces]. That’s so frumpy…I don’t want to give them frumpy little teacher’s names…

GM: You obviously spend a lot of time thinking about those things within your business?

KM: Yes but it’s also…accidentally on purpose…which is a new collection we are going to do. I think that describes us well. It’s accidental but it’s really on purpose.

GM: Looking effortless and non-contrived…

KM: But really you’re tearing up inside. [laughs]

GM: I heard you mention yesterday that you liked finding old perming manuals, finding those old diagrammatic drawings and things. They’re quite interesting aren’t they?

KM: They can be inspirational, a little diagram can sometimes inspire you and turn you in another direction. The other day we found some old Toni & Guy stuff, just Stack Winds. When I looked at a Stack Wind I realised how to do a certain hairstyle that had always been bugging me – that big round curl that is big and voluminous without being retouched. It’s all based on perming techniques. So if you have got any of those books, I will pay good money for it! Even old cutting books. There’s not a lot of information about hairdressing, even at school, I can’t remember having books. Do you?

GM: No. And probably at the time, we would have thought it was too old-fashioned to even look through…

KM: Yeah… I remember thinking that I know everything [laughs].

GM: Because, to be truly inspired and look inside yourself rather than look at what other people are doing, I think it is necessary to find that…source material. Tell me about some of the people you have worked with…you’ve worked with Robert Erdmann haven’t you…

KM: Robert Erdmann, Patrick Demarchelier, Wayne Maser, Richard Bailey, Michelle Comte, Max Doyle. Probably one of the most fascinating photographers I have worked with is a lady called Donna Trope. She was a surrealist beauty photographer from California who lived in London and now, I think, lives in Paris. She did this story with the cigarette butt put out on the skin. French Vogue ran it, American Vogue ran it, everybody ran it. She was very extreme. I did a story with her called “There’s A Huntsman In My Handbag” with Rachel Griffiths,  the actress. It was all done with snakes, sharks, dingos, spiders – all of the dangerous animals in Australia. She would take hours to set up a photograph, her attention to detail was incredible, she could make an ugly, green office room look like this amazing, sleek place out of the future. Her photos are beautiful, but uncomfortable, to look at. Her photos would look like they were about to hurt but are quite attractive too…

GM: So you really enjoy working with artistic photographers?

KM: Yes, but I have worked with some photographers who should just be artists, and stay artists, and not try and be fashion photographers. Sometimes if they are too artistic they try and control the entire image and it becomes an artistic image, of them. Fashion is not art and it shouldn’t really be confused. It’s artistic but it is not really art. I’ve worked with some photographers who get very confused about that, they say they are making art but it is not really fashion and no one’s happy because…they’re getting paid essentially. It’s just like us thinking that we are artists because we are not, BUT, it is artistic…

GM: Right. An artist has a blank canvas. We have to work on people don’t we, we have their egos to deal with…

KM: We are a trade basically. I consider myself artistic but more of a tradesperson…

GM: In every era of fashion, we come to define beauty or what we think is beauty in a new way. Are you always thinking about that?

KM: I’m always thinking about the weirdness of beauty because a lot of the girls who are quite beautiful, are weird. I remember the first time I worked with Gemma Ward. We looked at her and I though “Oh, she look like a Koala, sort of cute.” Someone had cut her hair and it was very square. I was doing a shoot for Harpers Bazaar and I just pulled this square cut back and thought “Oh my God, this is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.” She has a heart-shaped face. The heart-shaped face was considered very beautiful in medieval times but we haven’t had that for some time – the big eyes and small mouth with the heart-shaped face. In real life you could tell that she was really pretty but she looked odd, if you know what I mean. She was also a master of posing…I pulled back her hair and thought she is just so beautiful. She doesn’t need any make-up or hair done really.

GM: You touch on an interesting point. We need to look at our overall place in the whole process and not be afraid to remove ourselves from the equation if we need to.

KM: I’m a firm believer that hair is an accessory. I’m a small cog in a big team, I hate it when the hair overpowers unless it is a hair or beauty shoot rather than a fashion shoot.

GM: Yes, a beauty shoot will really concentrate on hair and make-up…

KM: And nothing else. Robert [Erdmann] who I worked with a lot, he used to say that beauty has no place in reality so the great thing about a beauty shoot is that you can do something really weird, it looks really weird with the girl just standing there but then when you take the photo, it looks amazing.

GM: As you journeyed through your session career, did you create a name for yourself as a certain type of session stylist or were you Kev from Australia who had this little product range who could do any type of hair…?

KM: I was the king of beach hair. [laughs] That was my claim to fame in the early Nineties. When I was in New York I was considered to be the grungy guy from Australia who did the beach hair. Then in Sydney, I was considered too glamorous for Sydney, which was really weird, the fine line between glamorous and grungy!

GM: Did you adapt your work for each market?

KM: America likes big hair so the hair had to get bigger. You do adapt for each market and you do adapt for each magazine because some of the magazines are very conservative and some of them are very wild magazines. You can push it but you have to be aware of who you are shooting for. I like to push the commercial thing because you can be avant-garde but no one is going to wear it. With commercial magazines you can push that envelope within the boundaries.

GM: Let’s talk about the way you have oriented the Kevin Murphy product line. The range is all about style and texture support for nice touchable hair, it’s not super product-heavy, and it’s not all about moisture. We both know that fashion trends move on. Do you think you will develop other products as things change and people maybe go back to a product-heavy look?

KM: Well I am actually. [laughs] I’m always thinking about what’s next and I have got some products in development that are heavier, and more moisturising, and more evident. You have to change with the times.

GM: Consumers are gradually getting used to that drier hair, less done look. At a consumer level it could stick around for a while. It could be a decade long trend…

KM: It’s easier too. It may be the “flares” of the next decade…frizz for example is much harder [for the average person] to get, whereas natural and clean is easy and good…

GM: What happened after the Kusco-Murphy thing? You were doing session work in America and then what happened next for you?

KM: I had some partners and it didn’t work out. I had big plans for myself and they didn’t have the big plans I thought they did so I came back to Australia…

By Zoe Walker, The New Zealand Herald, Friday April 24 2009.

Photo by Babiche Martens.

Hairstylist Greg Murrell is a well-known face within our local fashion and hair industries - and now his work is being acknowledged internationally, with a Master’s Award from the Australian Fellowship of Hairdressers.

Murrell, who owns Auckland hair salon Ryder, was given his award at the Australian Hair Fashion Awards at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday night. One recipient from Britain, Australia and New Zealand is selected to win the annual award, which acknowledges “masters of the craft in hairdressing”. The fellowship said that Murrell’s 25-year career “highlights the very essence of what the Master’s Award recognises” and called him “one of New Zealand’s finest”.

This year is shaping up to be a momentous one for Murrell - as well as winning the award he also celebrates the 10th year of business for his Auckland salon. He opened Ryder in 1999 after working with Paul Huege de Serville at Servilles for 13 years. “Paul gave me great training, and taught me that if you are passionate enough about something, you will be successful. The time came along when I needed to escape, so to speak, as by this stage I’d developed many of my own ideas about things. So I took the plunge and opened Ryder… It’s been quite a journey!”

He counts the relaxed ambience of the salon as key to it’s ongoing success. “Going to the hairdresser is an escape from your life, so it needs to feel very comfortable and unhurried.” He clearly knows what he’s doing: he has clients who have been coming to him for almost 20 years.”I really think that these relationships with clients become like friendships which endure,” he says.

But it’s not just his work at Ryder that has shaped his career - Murrell works as an educator and is the New Zealand artistic director for KMS California. He also works extensively with local fashion brands and publications to create hair looks for editorial, fashion shows and campaigns and has worked with the likes of Black Magazine, Stolen Girlfriends Club and Zambesi, which is something he clearly loves.

“It’s a great feeling to be acknowledged,” he says. “I remember quite distinctly starting out in my career and looking up at all these highly skilled people who I wanted to emulate. I guess I can say that I got there! This sort of career acknowledgement isn’t something I expected or aimed for, but I have worked in a very passionate and energetic way since my career began. It’s nice that someone was watching!”