South African hairdressing icon Salome de Wet has recently been chosen as a Goldwell International Artist. She is currently hosting a series of sold-out live seminars in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town, together with co-stars Bernadine Malan, Cerese Bouwer and Mia Crous. The seminars are on Goldwell’s stunning new Essentialism trend collection.
At the Johannesburg seminar, Salome shared how she got selected as an international artist, what her role involves, and more about where current trends are headed. Bernadine Malan also gave input on the trends and where South Africa stands from a global perspective.
The seminar was a massive success, with great feedback from attendees. Craig Hopkins, education leader for Kao South Africa, created a fabulous, colourful, and socially distanced environment where all delegates could safely enjoy the day.
Questions with Salome
Q: How did you get selected as a Goldwell International Artist?
A: It was a dream come true! I didn’t expect it to happen. My dream at first was to compete internationally and represent my country. Then it became my goal to win, and every year I strived for this and was disappointed when I didn’t make it! But then I was selected for an even greater honour, to be on the international artistic team. It started with Goldwell selecting four young artists from around the world to work on a collection, and after this they invited me onto the global team. I couldn’t believe it! It was surreal but amazing.
Q: What does your role involve?
Initially we were flown over to Berlin for trend forecasting before creating the new collection. This was a fascinating process. Then things had to get more creative because of lockdown so it has has included a lot of online education and tutorials. We were sent products internationally and were given creative freedom to use them! We have been working a lot with the Goldwell Education app which is amazing. In the future when Covid is controlled we will be travelling again, and will collaborate in person and do bigger shoots.
Q: What does the trend forecasting involve?
A: It is a huge process. In Berlin we first sat down with a trend forecasting company and they identified the key colour movements in fashion, design, art, nature. We then divided into groups focusing on blonds, brunettes and redheads and we swatched about 200 colour swatches, all of different variants, until we found the right shades. The amount of thought that goes into each shade is unreal.
Q: Tell us about the new Essentialism collection.
Today we are launching this collection. Myself and Bernadine Malan are working together and Bernadine has been prepping models for the past two weeks. This collection is all about colour melts, working freely and creatively. It’s so on trend with what we are experiencing in our world, taking things back to being simple, back to basics. As far as cuts go, it’s all very undone. No hard lines, very soft, undone textures, very textured rather than straight, low maintenance and moveable shapes, and layers.
Q: How do you feel about hosting a live seminar again?
A: I’m so looking forward to working live and learning from my co-presenters in each city. It’s so exciting to be doing things in person again, and I hope that networking together will also give us a chance to discuss other issues, such as post-lockdown business challenges.
Questions with Bernadine
Q: Bernadine, how does our hairdressing situation in SA compare globally?
A: We did a conference call recently with 15 other countries to discuss the new Essentialism trend collection, and it was so interesting that out of all of these countries, South Africa was the only one open for hairdressing. All the others were locked down and had been for some time. Some were on their third lockdown, it was very exciting for the others, because we were the only ones using live models!
Q: What’s your interpretation of this collection?
A: It’s all about expression. I am going to be showing styling stories where we change up the looks and make them different – 70s disco glam will be featuring there which is so exciting. Colour wise, melts are huge and it’s something we always get asked about in seminars so it’s great that these are so prevalent. I’m excited to be out and about again, and to be connecting and communicating on a live platform.
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