The city comes to life after a season of elegiac melancholy. New neon shoots are pushing through the cracks in the pavement and a spirit of anarchy breaks free. The latest Sassoon collection takes inspiration from the most avant-garde of artists: downtown New York’s Stephen Sprouse who put 80’s youth culture on the global catwalk; graffiti maestro Keith Haring who transformed street art into high culture and enigmatic hair stylist Christiaan, inventor of the buzz cut. Together these three pioneers and visionaries created a new visual language that directed the mood of the 80s and continues to influence popular culture today.

This season the look celebrates extreme individuality and unorthodox beauty: Sixties inspired fluoro outfits cling to lean bodies, wet look sequinned dresses bring to mind Debbie Harry in her Blondie heyday. Faces are daubed with incandescent kool-aid colour. Camouflage capes combine in a kaleidoscope of colour.

Scissor over comb ‘buzzed’ areas achieve a tough, hard-edged look and are juxtaposed with longer frayed panels or shorter provokable lengths of disconnection, which give a new dynamic to Sassoon geometry. Fine strips of short hair act to separate the differences in internal shape and create texture change. Weave cutting and multi channelling break up uniformity and achieve a fresh feeling.

Colour is as eclectic as it is fun. Patterns of matt and shine all play a part this season. Irregular camouflage sections graduate up the head in extraordinary mixes of coral, powder blue, charcoal grey and silver. These ‘shape on shape’ sections contrast base tones of cool, soft and white blondes, warm copper and cool brown.

This is Sassoon – where hair meets art.
Creative Direction: Mark Hayes
Haircuts: Bruce Masefield and the Sassoon Creative Team
Hair Colour: Edward Darley and the Sassoon Colour Team
Make up: Daniel Koleric
Photographer: Colin Roy