“In the salon you’re working for one person and their lifestyle. In session styling, you’re working for an image or a narrative. The priorities are completely different.” – Danilo Giangrecco, Dreaming Eli show.
One of the outstanding stylist collaborations we saw back in February at Fashion Week was the one with Danilo Giangreco and Dreaming Eli. We recently got an insight into what goes into collaborating with a designer from Danilo’s point of view.
The prep stage
Unlike working with clients in a salon, being behind a Fashion Show there’s a process beforehand. Briefing and researching. Understanding the narrative of the collection looking at the brand concept and what they want to deliver this season.
Discussions around textures, silhouettes and the emotional tone of the show early on, to make sure the hair will support and reinforce the inspiration and concept successfully.
Most of the time, the shows are based on a reference point era, so it’s necessary to be involved in the context beyond the brief, doing proper research for referring into the eras, textures, subcultures. Helpful to know where to start, to add and to stop.
Working on the models
Danilo says preparation is everything backstage. The focus is on creating the right foundation, clean, with just enough product to support the look.
Just like in the salon, every person has a different hair type. Adapting techniques rather than forcing the same method on every model is key. It’s about analysing the different hair types in the models line-up to meet the brief. Making sure to use the right tools and sticking to timings, to get the final visual result.
Remarkably, as with any work, there’s always room for a few technical challenges. Working quickly while maintaining precision, backstage environments full of movement and unpredictability. Basically, you can smell pressure everywhere, you just have to rely on your tools and products and keep things moving.
Previous preparation makes a big difference to how efficiently the team can work. Having a great team next to you is crucial.
The number of team members can vary, but everyone has to understand the look and move quickly – that’s essential for teamwork backstage. The team lead plays an important role, since it’s all about creating clarity and calm in a fast-paced environment
What connects the team lead and the team is communication. An essential skill, almost like styling hair itself.
The most important thing is to understand the vision, because everything flows much more smoothly and everyone takes pride in what they are doing.
For Dreaming Eli’s show, Danilo and his team of 12 hair experts took 15-20 minutes to get each model ready.
The atmosphere at Fashion Week can be intense, but it’s utterly energising. It’s a big contrast with focus and movement, but also a strong sense of collaboration across diverse teams like hair, makeup, styling and production.
Danilo notes: “I like to keep an ‘ego-free’ environment backstage and I highly value that everyone in the team has a good time.”
Catching trends
It is impossible not to notice trends in these moments that will be shaping the industry for the upcoming months. Despite every show having its own narrative, every designer envisions hair differently.
Usually shows like this filter down into everyday client requests in a softened way. Clients at the salon chair ask for elements, textures, silhouettes or a feeling related to the show, rather than an exact runway look.
As we can see, behind the glamour on the runway there’s a huge process and teams translating vision into details. As Danilo says, people often think it’s all very glamorous, but working backstage can be physically very demanding.
When the collaboration works, the hair doesn’t just follow the fashion vision, it becomes part of the story.
