Eugene Souleiman at The Wig Academy

For Eugene Souleiman, hair education is all about the process. As we set up our cameras, he mentions to Anthony Mascolo that his true goal with the new 12-episode masterclass we’re here to discuss is to share how to be creative. Throughout the traditional hair seminars and education courses across his career, he says, “I always felt I was missing that ‘aha!’ moment, where someone would have an idea.’ Now, on his own course, out now with his former assistant Pablo Kuemin’s thriving hair education platform The Wig Academy, he’s pushing that untraditional mission. “I want to instill in people that we need to play a little more.” 

Pablo’s own mission in bringing Souleiman on to the platform (the first 12-episode course to be led by someone other than Kuemin himself), is to capture this playful essence. It’s an essence which has characterised Souleiman’s illustrious career to date, and as his former 1st assistant, Kuemin feels that the legendary creative mind behind hair for Margiela, Yohji Yamamoto, Prada, Alexander McQueen, Issey Miyake, Rick Owens, and more, deserves amplification. “Over the years I had with him, I found he’s really good at translating his thought process…that’s what people are missing,” says Pablo. “They meet the ‘Eugene’ of the shows, they see what he does…but they don’t see what goes into it. I really wanted to package that and give that to the people.” The course dives into that history, covering Eugene’s influences as well as iconic looks from his career.

Pablo, besides being an established hairdresser and wigmaker himself, has led a career characterised by giving back. Growing up in the Swiss countryside meant that when he got home from work in the city wanting to test hair ideas, he jokes, “there were no people sitting in my chair. So I spent all my money on wigs to teach myself what I saw online.” In his 2nd year of apprenticeship, he began working with a charity that taught him how to cut medical-grade wigs for people suffering from cancer and alopecia. That company was Haar Vital, one of the premiere companies for medical-grade wigs. He worked his way up within the company, eventually being appointed as their artistic director. They sponsored him for shows, which let him straddle the worlds of health and fashion. “I was in between working with people to bring back their identity,” he says, “and also working with people to change a model’s identity on set.”

The two met when Pablo was working for Toni & Guy. Eugene laughs, remembering their early encounters. “I thought, who is this guy coming up to me, with a Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned down to here?” Though they might not have aligned in fashion sense, on everything that truly mattered they quickly clicked. Eugene reflects, “I think Pablo and myself are not traditional in any sense, in terms of how we think of hair, and who we are as people. And I would say we don’t fit into a particular category of person or who you’d imagine a hairdresser to be. Pablo’s really very logical, and organised…and I’m, like, the complete opposite.” He chuckles, glancing at Pablo. “He’s not saying anything, but silence speaks volumes!” 

Pablo’s actual opinion is perhaps more forgiving. “What I recognise is that you have so many ideas, and you go so far with things, that people sometimes try to…pin you down,” Pablo says to Eugene. “But I  would go and say, oh this is great, and what about this? And it would evolve, and evolve, and evolve.” 

The course came about during the Covid-19 pandemic. Eugene tried to experience the lack of work as a boon: “as you go along in your career, you realise the greatest gift you have is time,” he says. The unfortunate pause across industry allowed Eugene and Pablo to engage in an ongoing dialogue about hair, an extension of their existing working relationship. Eventually, they decided to take these conversations to a wider audience. “What we’re trying to do is tell stories.” Both hairdressers are proud of the quality of the course, shot with a cinematic feel that’s important to Pablo in setting the Wig Academy apart. The appearance of the course was on Eugene’s mind too, and he tried to make sure the course functioned from the hairdresser’s perspective. He remembers, “One time we were shooting, and I said, if you’re doing something, you wouldn’t stand in that place—why don’t I stick a GoPro on my hat so it will feel more interactive, and the person could see what they would actually be doing?” It’s details like this that upgrade the course’s impact, and both Pablo and Eugene are astonished by the global response. 

For both hairdressers, high-quality hair education is a foundational part of their process they’ve never questioned. One can perhaps trace a throughline from the legendary late Trevor Sorbie MBE, with whom Eugene spent nearly a decade, all the way through to Pablo, who is making waves as a celebrated session stylist himself. “From the beginning of my career, I really got taught to give my knowledge to other people, and it became part of my ethos,” says Pablo. 

Eugene agrees, adding, “If it’s something you really enjoy, you want to share your enjoyment with other people…I don’t really see myself above anyone. If I think about when I was in school, everything I excelled in was taught to me by someone who was really into what they were doing. And I felt that, and I felt that there was integrity behind that.” 

One might wonder, with a talent like Eugene, why just wigs? Pablo is sure that hairdressers and wig specialists alike have something to learn from the masterclass, despite the academy’s mission focus—and the positive feedback is already rolling in to prove him right. Anthony Mascolo remarks as we close our interview that for hairdressers, using wigs might be a way of not being so fearful. “Creativity,” he muses, “is stopped by fear.”