Who would have known being a model could be as easy as picking up the phone and
booking a hair appointment? Only in Paris, where a number of hair salons, desperate for guinea
pig manes on which to train their stylists, offer free or low-priced cuts to "models" off the street.
Well, on my big salon day I was ready to work it. I opted not to wear my new tall boots (way too
obvious). I mean we've all seen Fashion Television with the models hanging out in their sweats
and running shoes while the stylists prep them up for the big show. Still, I put on a touch of makeup
just in case.
My gig is in the unglamourous rough-around the edges 20e arrondissement (Rod and I spotted the
call for models while doing our guide-book walk there the previous weekend). When I go inside,
the lobby is crowded with women of all ages, although mostly way older than me, and looking very
unmodel-like. I am a catch in this crowd. A number of the women look like they've been here
before and have visibly unwashed hair, uncombed even, with grey roots in need of a covering. This
is the point where normally I would feel overdressed, but this is Paris and even the grannies here
do fashion like it's their job.
I've been given a card for my cut and I guess that my stylist is Sylvain since that's the name
scrawled across the sheet. After about ten minutes of standing around, watching more women
enter the lobby, I am sent with five others to the basement for the big transformative experience.
It turns out that Sylvain is the instructor of a roomful of young girls. As each client (I no longer
think that we are models at all) appears before him, he grabs her by the arm, looks around
the room and points to the stylist she should go to.
The girl who does my hair is sweet and giggly, but seems to be in relatively good favour with
Sylvain, unlike our neighbour who is constantly being barked at by him to "stand straighter"
because "c'est plus jolie". My girl did make the mistake of starting to cut a section of my hair
before he had approved the decision, and got told in a punitive tone that she wasn't to move
the slightest finger without his approval. My Women's Studies degree, tucked away in a box
in Canada, must have crinkled up just a little at that moment. Nevertheless, I emerged from the
experience two hours later with freshly shorn locks and an insider's scoop on the world of not-
so-haute coupure.
The Model's Code (as translated from the wall of the salon):
1) Have enough time
- two hours for a cut
- half-day for all else
not only must we suffer for beauty (as the woman who sold me the stiletto boots told me), but we
must also be very patient.
2) The client is not to intervene during the cut as it is an important training time for the stylist.
Hence mentioning my Women's Studies degree and feminist perspectives would have been most
unwelcome.
3) Have enough hair to cut, at least two months worth of growth.
This made me think of my Barbie dolls when I was a kid and how I would cut their hair shorter each
time on the remote hope that maybe, just maybe it would grow back. Oh yes, even then I was a
dreamer.
4) You must like change
Ummmm....
et le résultat....
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