Hairdresser Eugene Souleiman: “I give people the freedom to dream”

Eugene Souleiman rolls cigarettes and smokes them at a seemingly glacial pace as he zooms in from his East Sussex studio, which is tucked away in a sunny corner, far from the supposed “chaos” of his hairy masterpieces beyond the field of view of his webcam. “This is my constant… I don’t know, place of chaos, actually,” he says wryly. “It’s in a really beautiful part of the world, near Ashdown Forest. It’s very barren.” It’s understandable that he bases his work far from London’s incessant noise; as a hairdresser, Souleiman has spent more than 40 tireless years shaping some of fashion’s biggest moments, rejecting hair orthodoxy and blazing a new trail that other stylists couldn’t help but follow. He’s worked with the greats, including John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Junya WatanabeYohji Yamamoto, Lady Gaga and many more. “I wouldn't say I'm a traditional hairdresser,” he claims, which I think is an understatement.

We are here to talk about his recent collaboration with Wig Academy, an online hub for video master classes in hair and wig styling, founded by hairstylist Pablo Kuemin during the pandemic. “Like all the best projects, it started as a conversation between friends. It was at a time when we were struggling to have an outlet,” he says, “and it was great for me to go back to the drawing board. I used to teach hairdressers, but I always thought the apprenticeship system and the 'teacher-student' dynamic weren't really current or relevant.”

In the videos, Souleiman wears a GoPro as he recreates 13 unique looks from his archive by dyeing, cutting, spraying and even flocking hair, all on a custom-made concrete mannequin. There is a visual guide to recreating Grace Coddington's auburn waves, an amorphous neon pink afro and even a giant beehive wig constructed around a 19th-century crinoline. “We looked at every area [of hairstyling tuition] and basically screwed it up. It's the first thing I've done where I didn't feel tied down.” A series of eight videos turned into 12 as he pushed his reinventions further than before – using not just techniques you might learn in a check-box diploma, but by feeling and impulse, applying products you might find at a hardware store or art supply store. “We don't talk enough about what inspires us. We're always on the right side of our brain when it comes to technique,” Souleiman says. “When I hear someone talk like that, I just lose it. I don't find it interesting at all.”

Souleiman grew up in 1970s London during the Cultural Revolution. At a time when The Clash and Sex Pistols were leading a creative rebellion and disenfranchised youth were fighting back against the mainstream, Souleiman was thrown out of Goldsmiths University and ended up at a local job centre. Vivienne Westwood clothes with his punk rocker hairstyle, and one of the employees said he would be a good hairdresser. He trained as an assistant to Vidal Sassoon's protégé Trevor Sorbie before making his own way in the editorials of counter-cultural titles such as Dazed and ID.

“When I started, I literally had no money. I ate beans on toast for a year and took multivitamins. I remember not being able to afford to travel. I would take the train to London Bridge for The face I didn't have a ticket and had to wait for the security guard to go to another platform so I could jump over the fence and walk to Old Street with a backpack full of hair equipment,” he recalls. “When I started, there was no £400 a day, there was no Uber, there was no catering. I remember being backstage at one of Lee's [Alexander] At McQueen's first shows, his mother brought canned salmon and cucumber sandwiches and three bottles of lemonade for everyone at the show. But I think hard times make people strong.” In the early 90s, with the rise of grunge, he worked with Calvin Klein, Jil Sander And Prada.

Souleiman attributes his longevity to his ability to adapt to clients. The prolific people and brands he's worked with are outsiders and radicals who have built their worlds with personal meanings and ideologies and a need to communicate something bigger, more important than just the fabric they use to dress bodies. “My first show in Paris was with Yohji. I went to the fitting and everything on the rack was black, black, black – a sea of ​​black clothes. I thought, what the hell am I going to do with this? They're going to look like nuns. When the girls tried them on, I realized that the clothes came to life when they were worn – there was a relationship between the body and the clothes within the outfit,” he says. “The space in between is what makes the outfit. That changed the way I looked at hair; it's not about creating a curl, it's about what happens between the curl and the movement. It gave life force to the hair.”

At school, Souleiman struggled with learning. “I have several problems: I have a bit of ADHD and I'm dyslexic. I taught myself to read. I could probably understand two or three words of a sentence at first, and there was always one word that caught my attention. I would read the few words I understood and imagine the next word,” he says, before having a eureka moment about the inner circuitry of his brain. “I was constantly going back and forth, and that's kind of how I work creatively. If something isn't quite right, I step back, have a coffee, and have my assistant pretend to do something. Suddenly it makes sense, like I remember the missing word. I'm constantly vacillating.”

I met Souleiman on set once, working his magic for a cover shoot for AnOther Magazine, photographed by his regular collaborator Craig McDean. The atmosphere at most editorial shoots can often feel quite frosty, as the creatives jockey quickly and quietly to add their personal touch to each look. But Souleiman broke the tension by cracking jokes with the models and crew, who chatted and confided in him. He asked McDean and our fashion director Katie Shillingford to open up, explain their references and their hopes for each image. He listened intently, politely offered his ideas and styled each hairstyle with sensitivity. The result was brilliant.

“It’s about being open to conversation,” he stresses. “When I first came to Maison Margiela [A/W17 couture]John [Galliano] said, “I want the hair to feel like it was done quickly. They got out of the shower and left it wet.” I said, “But that's not enough for you, John. You need more, much more.” He looked at me, waiting, and I said, “They might have been in such a hurry that they forgot to rinse the shampoo out of their hair.” And he did: Souleiman whipped shampoo into a lather and threw it on the models' heads as they walked the runway. Bubbles dripped and slapped on the floor. “You should always be open to what makes the hair on your arms stand on end.”

From the shaggy, messy mohawks at Alexander McQueen's dirty and aggressive S/S94 show to the pompadour hair of Alphonse Mucha hair At the extraordinary Maison Margiela Artisanal show earlier this year, Souleiman's hair lends something bigger and grander, something transportable. Fashion has changed immeasurably since Souleiman's beginnings, but he remains steadfast in his desire to upset the establishment to create something more beautiful than his collaborators thought possible. “I think what I bring is a sense of security. I give people the freedom to dream, and I can make that dream come true for them.”

Eugene Souleiman's Master Class The land of dreams is now open for pre-sale through the Wig Academy. Book Here.