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Inside the Sculptural Hair at Thom Browne’s Fall/Winter Runway Show

Lead stylist James Pecis and his team spent days creating the whimsical looks.

Hair
thom browne aw22

In an interview with Women’s Wear Daily, Thom Browne elaborated on the inspiration behind his Fall/Winter runway show and his intrigue with the Island of Misfit Toys from “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” To bring this vision to life, half of the models represent the kids’ toys in the film and the other half were the adult version of the toys.

Browne decided that the toys would wear knit hats, and when he was conceptualizing the show, he sent a text with a photo of the hats to James Pecis, the lead stylist for the show, and asked him how they could connect the two groups. Pecis responded, “Yes—let’s make hair balls.” Each “adult” model would have a hair look that corresponded with the structure of the knit hats.

Photo: Ama Kwarteng

Photo: Ama Kwarteng

To create the sculptural hair balls, Pecis and his team wrapped Yaki hair extensions around lightweight Styrofoam balls. They carved holes into the end of each ball to make it easier to pin it onto the model’s head.

“There was a lot of prep involved with this,” Pecis tells Coveteur backstage before the show began. “We spent a few days making these balls. It was tricky because we couldn’t color-match them exactly to the models beforehand, so we had to have a bunch of options on hand.”

Photo: Getty

Photo: Getty

Before the Styrofoam sculptures were attached, the hair was slicked back into either a high ponytail or a low one. “This is not a simple, natural look; this is very extreme, so we used R+Co’s Vicious Strong Hold Flexible Hairspray to hold everything in place,” says Pecis.

When asked about his favorite look, Pecis called out a look with a hat in the shape of a dog. “The solution was to build a large sculpture out of balls—it was a lot of fun. This is the [work] we want to do.”

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