Julien d ys interview techniques

Interview by Filep Motwary

Julien d’Ys is more than a hairstylist. He is a storyteller, a poet and a fashion veteran who finds amusement in mixing the strangest materials together for the sake of beauty. Each of his projects serves as a testimonial—a point of reference in contemporary fashion’s history and the key to the gates to dreamland. A good fashion show is everything together: the clothes (of course), the music, lights, casting, hair and make-up. The most incredible hair stories have carried his signature for almost 40 years. He also likes to paint, keep his notes in sketchbooks, and to flirt with photography. Julien d’Ys responds to my phone call in a very good mood. He has just returned from New York where he participated in “Art of the In-Between”, the Metropolitan Museum’s retrospective on Comme des Garçons and Rei Kawakubo, with whom he has worked closely for more than two decades creating the hair for her shows and occasionally the make-up as well. He as

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5'ELEVEN" Magazine : Interview with Nicolas Jurnjack Hairstylist - Words bygd Abra Kennedy

What was being a hairstylist 35 years ago (when you started) like? What does it mean now and what differences do you see?

It was another planet, my dear Miss Kennedy. You couldn’t just enter the industry as it fryst vatten nowadays. First, let me tell you something very interesting that goes a bit further back in time. In the '50s, '60s and '70s, there were no agents. If the elite press was in need of a hairstylist, they would call a hair shop like Jaques Dessange, Jean Louis David, Vidal Sassoon, to name some, and ask if someone was available to do the hair for a shoot. The hairdresser would pack a couple of things, go to the studio, do the hair for Vogue and go straight back to the salon.

There were no freelancers. Fashion stylists were employed full time by one magazine. No one was jumping from one branch to the next, like today.

What happened in the '80s? When magazines added more advertising, m

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Julien d'Ys: My Comme des Garçons Sketchbook

Fashion & BeautyCollections Digest

The artist behind the masterful beauty looks at CDG shares his sketchbook of illustrated inspirations for S/S16

TextOlivia Singer

This season, Rei Kawakubo's Comme des Garçons collection was themed around benevolent blue witches, and a potent sense of supernatural power. It seems appropriate, therefore, when long-term collaborator and hairstylist for her shows Julien d'Ys repeatedly describes their relationship and its manifestations as "magical." Their creative relationship – as is true for all of Kawakubo's collaborations – is slightly bizarre; d'Ys doesn't see the clothes until the day before the show, long after he has designed and formed whatever sculptural creations are to grace the models' heads. "The way I work with Rei is special," he explains. "I have no idea how, but what I create is somehow always right for the clothes. This time, the only word I knew was ‘sorceress’ but w