Three-time winner of Colour Technician of the Year, Christel Lundqvist is one of the industry’s most influential colour specialists. The London-based colourist’s work can be seen on celebrities including Pink, Ellie Goulding and Pixie Lott, and on catwalks for Mark Fast, Sophia Webster and Manish Arora.

Hailing from Sweden, Lundqvist moved to London at 18 to join Toni & Guy, before relocating to Australia as a brand ambassador for Wella Professionals. Returning to the UK, the last four years have seen her making waves as Global Creative Technical Director for TIGI. In 2016, Lundqvist opened her first salon, Stil, in London’s Notting Hill. A Scandinavian-inspired haven, the salon focuses on tailor-made, polished creative colour. Lundqvist spoke to INFRINGE Editor-in-chief Anthony Mascolo about the experience of opening her first salon, her favourite trends and future colour predictions.

Anthony Mascolo: You’ve opened your first salon, Stil, which has this real Scandinavian aesthetic. The time and effort you’ve put in is incredible, you’re really bringing your roots with you… Can you tell us about this journey?

Christel Lundqvist: Scandi-vibes! People always say that you should do something natural to you and that’s what I know, inside and out. I think we were very fortunate, because when we opened the salon, that sort of minimal Nordic style was a big trend. I always wanted it to be very minimal, a chic boutique setting, with a very personal approach and experience for the client. The vision for the hair is very effortless, undone, Scandinavian… but of course there are different parts to it, we do both classic and creative colour. The feedback we get from clients is that there is definitely an opportunity for us to grow and focus on colour, as most salons focus on styling. I guess what we do is a bit more tailored, we’re very much high-end fashion inspired, whereas a lot of other colour salons are more street inspired.

AM: The two campaigns you’ve done for Stil are really fresh and different. Can you tell us about them?

CL: It was really important for us to create an image for the brand: that it’s Scandinavian, minimal, fashion focused and very uncomplicated. So, we decided to go for very simple and effective looks. The first shoot we did was a combination of different commercial looks, very wearable for the consumer and for our clients to relate to and ask for in the salon. We went for the Scandinavian blonde palettes – very clean and bright with a bit of textured movement.