Fancy rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous, travelling the world and winning awards for your outstanding haircuts and creations? Of course you do! The life of a celebrity hair stylist is exciting and can lead to book deals, television appearances and sponsorships but to get to that point it’ll take a lot of hard work and a pinch of good luck! Hoping to become a celebrity hair stylist? Read the rest of this post to get the low down on how to make it possible.
Master your craft
Like with all jobs, the first thing you need to do is to master your craft. Enrol on a hairdressing course to learn the basics and practice on as many people as you can.
Be prepared to start at the bottom
Let’s face it, you are not going to transform into a celebrity hair stylist over night. This is why you have to be prepared to start at the very bottom of the ladder. Do as much work experience as you possibly can and shadow different hair stylists. Once you have enough work experience under your belt, you will be able to apply for trainee positions at upmarket salons and see where it takes you.
Build up your portfolio
Your portfolio is a representation of your skills, knowledge and experience as a hair stylist so you will need to work hard in making it the best it can possibly be. You may want to start out by offering to work on test shoots with local photographers and models. Although you will not usually get paid, the photographer will allow you to use the professional shots for your portfolio and will credit you on their website and any publications the photographs end up in.
Try and work on as many different shoots as possible to diversify your portfolio. The more haircuts and styles you showcase in your portfolio, the more experienced and creative you will appear to future celebrity clients.
Enter competitions
Another great way to raise your profile in the industry is to enter competitions for hair stylists. The prizes often include designer hair tools, money and getting to style the hair of a celebrity at a high profile event. You may even end up getting yourself a job at a top salon out of it. There’s nothing to lose but a lot to potentially gain by entering yourself in a hair stylist competition.
Network, Network, Network!
In the world of showbiz it’s not what you know but whom you know so you are going to have to work hard at building up contacts and maintaining good professional relationships. Put your heart and soul into networking with other industry professionals and you never know what doors will open for you. Attend as many industry events as possible (make sure you take along your business cards) and interact with other hair stylists, models, celebrities and photographers on social media sites.
Make contact
If you have a fantastic portfolio and great reputation, there is no shame in contacting celebrities’ representatives to tell them about yourself and your work. The worst that can happen is they say they are not interested so there really is nothing to lose! You never know, you may actually end up pulling it off and scoring a job when a celebrity’s regular stylist is unavailable!
Get an agent / manager
Once you have built up an outstanding portfolio and won a handful of clients, you may be in the position where you need to get representation in order to take your career further. Managers and agents certainly don’t come cheap but they will get your name in front of the right people and help to raise your profile significantly.
Conclusion
Just one great hair style on one high profile celebrity has the ability to raise your status over night, however even getting to that point will take a lot of time, effort and as we said before, luck. Our advice is to focus on learning your craft and the best way to do that is to sign up to a course like those offered by thelondonhairacademy.com.