A runway show is over in less than 10 minutes, but the work that goes into preparing the hair can take days, weeks, even months. For hairstylist Paul Hanlon, the look he created for Moschino A/W 23 in Milan, under the creative lead of designer Jeremy Scott, took three months. The labour of love was, in part, a tribute to the influential work of Anthony Mascolo and in return, designed to inspire a new generation of hair creatives. This was to be Scott’s last collection for Moschino, lending a further level of poignancy to the ephemeral yet memorable nature of show hair.

When Paul Hanlon contacted INFRINGE to request if he and his team could use the Library Space to prep the hair for the upcoming A/W 2023 Moschino show in Milan, the answer was, of course, a resounding ‘yes’. Hanlon is one of the industry’s leading session stylists, known for his long-standing collaboration with Alessandro Michele for Gucci and designer Jeremy Scott (for his own label and Moschino); his close working relationship with fashion’s Premier League photographers David Sims, Craig McDean, Steven Klein and Mert & Marcus, among others. Hanlon is one of the INFRINGE family and featured in Issue 3. He began his career at Toni & Guy and is a fan of Anthony Mascolo whose influential work he saw at hair shows in the 90s. The reason Hanlon connected with the INFRINGE team was specific to the inspiration behind the hair for the Moschino show: “As soon as I began to understand the concept from Jeremy, it reminded me of the work Anthony was doing in the 80s – treating hair as a material.” The result is an homage to Anthony and “a tribute to a man who inspired a 16 year-old kid from Birmingham; to say thank you and celebrate the industry”.

“It’s 3 months of work for a runway show that lasts 10 minutes so I wanted to explain the whole process: the creativity and investment involved, none of which would be possible without my team. It’s not just picking up a pair of scissors, or quickly coming up with something 10 minutes before the show. Jeremy called me 3 months ahead of the show; he said: ‘I’ve got this idea for the hair and if you don’t do it, I’m not doing the show’. He knew I’d put one thousand percent into it and knew I couldn’t say no. Jeremy lives in LA, so after a conversation, he sent me a picture from a 1982 Yves Saint Laurent show and the girls had scraped back hair with a little feather on top. But the minute I received the image, I dropped my phone and the screen cracked. The fractured effect this had on the image really inspired me: it looked like kryptonite! I was thinking punk and goth, but Jeremy wanted it to be ‘couture’: punk but polished…it reminded me of some images of Anthony’s work, from the 80s, where the hair almost looked as if it was printed, so I wanted to make it more organic and not necessarily look like hair. We did two test looks – one extreme and one a bit calmer. I really wanted the stronger version and the great thing is that everyone was on board – Jeremy, show stylist Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele, everyone got it.”

ABOVE: Each headpiece is made up of individual blades, constructed to appear like birds’ wings while still looking quite punk once assembled.

AT LEFT: Arlo, Hanlon’s young son, joined the team in the Library Space and did his bit, helping to make the blades, spraying each section, then using straightening irons to seal and fix the shape. Given that Hanlon spends a lot of time travelling for work, away from home, it is important to him that Arlo has every opportunity to understand what his father does. Involving him in the creative process meant that each individual hair style included a blade created by Arlo, a beautiful representation of the Hanlon DNA in a new generation.

Moschino designer Jeremy Scott and Paul Hanlon at the studio in Milan.

ABOVE: The assembly of the final look couldn’t be done until everyone was in Milan together, so the team travelled with boxes full of blades of hair. It took five days to assemble all the pieces into the final looks.

“We’ve got 45 girls in the show and each headpiece uses 6 packets of hair, so that’s nearly 300 packets of hair. It’s a lot of work!”