“I like to get the most out of hair,” says Tony Rizzo, the Italian-born, London-based hairstylist who founded the Alternative Hair Show. Rizzo began doing hair at the age of 13 because he enjoyed the ambience of hair salons. “I knew this was what I wanted to do,” he says. “I found that I was quite good at it.”
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Most of the audience members at Sunday night’s sold-out show at the Chicago Theatre were hair professionals, in town for the Chicago Midwest Hair Show in Rosemont. The Alternative is entertainment they look forward to every year; some of them compare it to a rock concert. Tickets were $55-$85, and the people who paid to get in were dressed almost as edgily as the models onstage.
The Wella Corporation, Modern Salon magazine, and the professional organization Cosmetologists Chicago sponsored this year’s event. (Included on the bill was dancing, singing, and rapping by the Happiness Club, an organization of children who write and perform their own material, which addresses social injustices.) Salon teams from all over–the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, Italy, and Spain–had spent an entire year preparing. “You have to understand hair shows are not put on overnight,” says Rizzo. “The concept of what you get to see at a show like this: you’ll get to see daywear, you’ll see evening, you’ll see avant-garde….The combination of hair and fashion is paramount.”
Most of the evening’s hairstyles were for women, but the team from Art + Science broke away with its collection, “The Men’s Room,” featuring cuts for men that experimented with color streaks and tints. “It’s alternative street, but still commercial,” said Accattato. The models’ clothes contributed to a mischievous feel: one wore a fur vest and carried a bottle of whiskey in his pants. They pantomimed peeing and scratched their butts. In a twist, the last model showcased, apparently the group’s leader, was a woman, sporting a tuxedo with no shirt.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photos/Al Yeager.
