June 19th, 2009

Press Clipping: Friends of FrontRowDiary: Greg Murrell – A Passion for Hair

This Saturday the 20th of June, premium NZ hair salon, Ryder, celebrates a decade in the business.  Ryder’ s Director Greg Murrell has been keying looks for Zambesi for 12 years as well as being the only Kiwi selected to work on hair industry giant Kms California’s global artistic team. Greg was recently awarded a Master of the Craft Award from the Australian Fellowship for Hairdressing and this week FRD is proud to have Greg as our guest contributor. 

From FrontRowDiary.Com 19June 2009

“In a craft like hairdressing, one of the most exciting moments is when you realise that you are no longer operating out of repetition of learned technique. Your hands no longer work in such a mechanical way but become conduits for what you are thinking and feeling. I always say that hands are the best hairdressing tool ever invented.

When I was first learning, everything I did seemed forced. I was scared of the hair. Scared to make mistakes. But gradually, freedom came. I learned to trust my instincts. I developed my own sensitivity to hair and connected to my own creative soul. I started to look for what would make people look individual. The idea of imperfection became important to me.

The celebrity influence on hairstyle trends is huge. Sometimes I wish more people could just go their own way with what they do with their hair. The cult of celebrity seems like such an old and boring idea to me and defining your look by this seems strange. We are now confronted with so much media that it is harder for one to be truly individual with their hair. Ideas scream around in cyberspace so quickly that ironically it takes all of us further away from who we individually are because we are spending too much time trying to look like someone else!

Just like in fashion, what is considered ugly/beautiful or interesting/boring in hair depends on what moment you are examining this. As with any trend, the moment an idea truly hits the mainstream, the innovators head in the opposite direction. A new mood or moment arrives out of this and often it is something I would have dismissed 6 months previously.

But unlike fashion, a bad idea in hair is not something that is easy to remove like a garment. Making ideas work on a human head is challenging as ultimately it is always about making people look good. Something nags at me inside if I feel like I didn’t make someone look and feel good.

For me to do this successfully, I had to develop my own philosophies around my practice. So I try to connect to the individual character of a head of hair. If I do something really strong, then I will usually add a soft component as a balance. I’ll usually choose one aspect where I will focus my attention. Everything then fits to that. I like my imprint on the hair to be invisible. The hair does not look like it has been cut or done. The individual is wearing the hair, the hair is not wearing them”.

FRD1