Whilst Martine Rose is renowned for bringing originality to traditional menswear staples, it was Johnnie Sapong’s hair styling that won the prize for ingenuity this season – creating a variety of coloured ooks which masked the models faces...
After three seasons of MAN support, London designer Martine Rose showcased her A/W12 collection in her first standalone show at Somerset House’s Portico Rooms yesterday, sponsored by NEWGEN. Looking at “the evolution of flying” and World War II flight jacket designs she based her bold collection around the structure of the MA-1 bomber jacket, affixing patches and pin badges across silk deviations on the garment. Playing with varying themes of uniformity the colour palette focused on an army green and bright orange as models marched out in heavy Cat workwear boots. Busy abstract camo-prints came across jeans and shirting, balanced out by other looks that featured slim tailored trousers, crisp white shirts and ties.
Whilst Rose is renowned for bringing originality to traditional menswear staples, it was Johnnie Sapong’s hair styling that won the prize for ingenuity this season; creating a variety of coloured looks which masked the models faces or wrapped around their necks teamed with blunt fringes. Here we exclusively speak to Sapong about his conception of these standout hair looks and how he and his team went about achieving them...
Johnnie Sapong: “After meeting with Martine and Max and going through the collection I decided to try and complement the feelings and ideas I felt were coming through, which were about tribes and cults like in South or Central American Indiana (Peru or Guetamala) and gangs (Resovoir Dogs). I felt the references to Suedeheads and the Knights of the Round Table were also relevant.
"I decided to create a uniform look that on first glance you wouldn't be sure whether it was a piece of fabric or a mask, rather than the hair itself giving the feeling that they all belong to the same tribe or gang."
In keeping with all of this I decidedto create a uniform look that on first glance you wouldn't be sure whether it was a piece of fabric or a mask, rather than the hair itself giving the feeling that they all belong to the same tribe/gang. To do this we used coloured acrylic wigs that had a black base (yellow, henna red and lilac). Using this type of wig gave us the high-shine and an almost metallic feel, perfectly in fitting with the mask/helmet aesthetic and by concealing the face it added to the air of mystery. We tucked the hair into shirts with closed collars or on other looks with open colours or with T-shirts we wrapped the hair around the neck."
Johnnie Sapong’s key trends for men's hair in A/W12: “I think we will see a return of strong styled looks for men – rockabilly, sculpted quiffs like at Versace. Polished looking hair a la Louis Vuitton and well-groomed fuller hair as at Cavalli. Tribes and cults maybe evident also…
With special thanks to Rannelle Chapman from the Johnnie Sapong team.
Text by Lucia Davies
