In my early career as a photographer, I had a lot of hairdresser friends and spent a lot of time in their salons. I found myself shooting for hair magazines, collaborating with stylists on editorial hair for GHD and the National Hair Federation. Working with high profile stylists on building award winning hair portfolios, I loved how I could illuminate hair, studying its depth, sheen and how it worked with light.
As I worked on more editorial shoots with wigs, I noticed how bad some photographed. They looked shiny, flat in colour and the range of decent colours not great. A lot of retouching needed to be done, smoothing out frizzy fibres, reducing flash back and colour correcting to achieve the hair colours we desired. I found trying to source colours - especially blondes - frustrating. They were always too golden yellow, clashing blend of cool and warm fibres and often jet black roots. The amount of wigs I bought was ridiculous and I had to correct majority of them, buying bundles of wefts to sew in to tone them down or lift the shade to something more desirable.
Stylists also found many wigs difficult to work with, wigs being too thin, short layers, slippery, tangling and frizz were common issues we experienced. I simply had enough of wasting money, spending endless nights sewing wefts in and having to rely on photoshop for retouching. Throughout the many years of creating my Frankenstein wigs - I gained a lot of knowledge about fibre properties, colouring and wig construction. That's when I reached out to a manufacturer to collaborate on creating something special! We mastered a new fibre blend, which then gave me the opportunity to play with colour.
The Couture Collection was my first, it began as 8 shades, all with beautiful complimentary shadow roots which I designed with a wonderful human hair colourist. Platinum, Strawberry, Flaxen, Sandy, Sienna, Wenge, Bordeaux and Ebony arrived and they were beautiful! The instantly sold out.
I had designed them referencing hair from the silver screen and red carpet. The one I had always dreamed of was rooted Flaxen Blonde Couture which was inspired by Sharon Stone in the film Casino. I remember watching her and falling in love with the hair in the casino scenes - to me it was the best ever honey blonde. Who knew seeing that movie would lead me to designing wigs to replicate that hair 20 years later! My friend James (The Vivienne) had put in a request for a pale blonde with a beautiful soft beige root, inspired by Marilyn Monroe which became Platinum, arriving just in time to crown him the first ever winning of Drag Race UK.
Over the years the Couture Collection has grown, new colours from the world of celebrity have been added. It is now a diverse collection featuring cool, neutral and warm shades at varying levels.
The Couture Collection has always and remains to be our range of 'Best Ever' salon shades. We have lost count of the amount of messages from artists declaring "This is the best ever shade of.... that I have ever seen!". If you need the most gorgeous version of a natural hair - our Coutures are the ones!