A Hair's Breadth from Kate Moss

by Mistress Justine Brown



James Brown with his friend, Kate

About a year ago, I read about how Kate Moss' old pal and hairstylist, James Brown, who she's known since her Croydon days, was opening a salon in a quiet spot off London's Oxford Street, the hugest and most frenetic shopping promenade in Europe. A big fabulous party was held, and Kate Moss did her best to help her friend promote his new business and line of hair products. Strolling along Wigmore Street (yes, Wigmore Street), I spied the salon and darted in on a whim. Why not get two big silver streaks at my temples? I said to myself-- in spite of what I wrote on this very subject not so long ago (see "London Hair Trends Redux").

The picture that started it all

The sensible Irish colourist talked me out of my silly idea and into a better one. Why not get two big creamy blond streaks to complement my already bleached hair? The salon was relatively quiet when I went there, so I had no chance to goggle at the clientele. But I had my ideas about them. I made a lunchtime appointment for the following Tuesday.

I reasoned that half their customers must be made up of streaky blond Kate Moss fans and wannabees, all hoping, like myself, to hear the words "Hey, you look a bit like Kate." I was ready to settle for "Hey, you look a bit like Kate's fat older sister." Or even... no, Mistress Brown has her (now radically depleted) dignity to maintain. Anyway, it turns out that I was by far the most deluded person in the salon. It was peopled by serious style folk of all ages and walks of life. Each one of them had a clear idea of the look they were going for, from the tailored young man with the shiny black 80s-esque short-back-and-sides to the gallery-going seventy-year-old lady with the severe gray bob. Not a blonde in sight. (By the way, if you want to see the women who share my affliction, go down to Top Shop, where Kate has a line of clothing inspired by the contents of her own closet.)

I made my usual mistake with hairdressers. When, before touching my hair, Antony kindly complimented me on my overall colour, I blithely replied "Thanks. I do it myself." I even mentioned Clairol's brilliant newish product, Perfect 10, which really does give a great result without wrecking the hair, all in ten minutes. Might as well have slapped him in the face with a wet fish. Why do I do that? Not only is it churlish, it's dangerous. I mean, this is the guy who is about to apply toxic chemicals to my hair.

I told the cheerful, friendly shampoo girl about the Skool, and she said she'd quite like to attend. I told her about how a Skoolgirl who shall remain nameless was documenting her Obagi Blue Peel (watch this space!). And although the colourist stayed mum, the shampoo girl did mention Kate. Yes. I didn't even have to raise the topic. We looked at the current copy of ID magazine featuring our heroine on the cover. Her hair was short and dark, and she looked about fifteen. I couldn't believe it was a new photo, but it was. Apparently James Brown, who styled the shoot, had to encourage her a little to wear that wig, but in the end they were both thrilled with the results. "I had my hair like that when I was a teenager," I hinted embarrassingly. Nuthin'. Not a sausage.

And here's Mistress Brown just last week.I mean, throw me a bone here, people!

I came out of the salon all freshened and styled and feeling glamorous. I had big golden hair. "Look! Doesn't she look like Kate Moss?" I heard someone whisper, and I turned to see the slender teenager who had caught everyone's attention. Oh well. I reckon I'll go back to the James Brown Salon though. Antony steered me out of hazardous waters hair-wise, and he deserves some courtoisie. Plus, the fantasy is worth the price of admission alone.

Punk Rock Hair

by Miss Justine Brown

Miss Brown and her pals had one friend who actually had her hair done in a salon. Eve had nicked her mother's collection of early 60s Vogue magazines, and she wanted the Vidal Sassoon Cleopatra look-- shiny, black and perfectly slanted down to points at the chin-- and well outside of our sphere of expertise. Lynn and Miss Brown accompanied her, magazine in hand, to see the flashy new wave hairstylists one day. The place was called Suki's, and it was run by a blunt Japanese woman who seldom emerged from her office.

The punks were sitting in the lobby waiting for Eve, reading trade magazines, when a flock of haircuts descended, clucking, cawing, squawking and shaking their polished geometric hairstyles: the staff. Even La Suki herself appeared to get a good look at our horrific hair. They wanted to fix it. Their hands were trembling. Lynn's was short, spiky and backcombed (perfect), and Miss Brown's new asymmetrical haircut was platinum blond (heaven). Granted, it had taken about two weeks to achieve that colour-- that's the way bleach was in 1979, even if the product was called Super Blondissima.

Miss Brown was a honey-type blonde until age eight and has naturally medium brown hair. She smeared on the drugstore stuff, which was bright blue and had fumes that made her eyes sting. Within 15 minutes her scalp started to burn! Her eyes watered in the cloud of fumes! But she persevered, leaving the hellish substance on for an hour before leaping into the shower almost crazed with relief. The result? Perfectly white at the roots, where body heat speeds up the process. The rest was brassy as all get-out, pretty much red. And she had to wait at least a week before trying again (see final result above: Miss Brown pictured with Grade 8 pal Andrew Miller).

The tricky part going to school and convincing her classmates she did it on purpose.

A week later she bought another kit and this time got the right result. This kind of bleach--stripping-- is meant to work on the watercolour principle. You get a white piece of "paper" and add colour to it (toner). We mostly avoided toner, although she quite liked silver and a pale lavender varieties favoured by old ladies. All the drugstore girls say the same thing: dark-haired girls come in and buy the toner only, say Harvest Moon or Sunlit Wheatfield. They wind up in tears with dark, slightly brassified hair (there's only a little peroxide in a toner). Some of them, the poor ones, brazen it out; the rich ones bolt to the hairdressers and vow never to do DIY hair again.

Home haircolour has been getting stronger, faster, and easier on the hair shaft since Miss Brown was 14. Miss Brown ought to to know, because she's been alternately bleaching and dyeing (darkening) her hair the whole time. But when Allure (http://www.allure.com) magazine (the best and only beauty magazine worth reading) included Clairol's Perfect 10  in a shortlist of beauty advances for 2009, she sensed a sea-change in the wonderful world of hair colour.

The product uses new technology to achieve an accurate, even and gentle-on-the-locks result in TEN MINUTES. It doesn't sting or smell like rotten eggs; it's mild. Miss Brown hates brassy blond, and feels the time for platinum may be past. She put Perfect 10 over highlighted hair. Now she's got a light, neutral hue. Sunlit Wheatfield, in fact! (This 1940s still from genius animatrix Lotte Reiniger shows Helen of Troy. Was it really her hair, and not her face, that launched a thousand ships?) 


To give the hairdressers at Suki's their due, our Eve emerged with a perfectly tapered bob as blue-black as Veronica Lodge's, a look she enhanced with Egyptian-style liquid eyeliner. Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra had nothing on hers.