Joseph, a Davines Master Session Ambassador, explains how backstage hair at New York Fashion Week demands finishing a look in 8-10 minutes instead of the typical 30-45 in a salon, with zero room for editing. He travels globally teaching stylists the specific skills needed for runway work and believes in paying forward the mentorship that shaped his own career.
Chapters
So today we're here with Joseph. Joseph is an amazing artist, but he also inspires people around the world to be more beautiful through hair and makeup. And behind the scenes is extraordinary at New York Fashion Week.
Absolutely.
How you keep it all together, I don't know.
I don't know either. We just kind of, you know, get through it. And we have a great team, and we try to be as organized and prep as much as possible. But my biggest advice for any event, I would say, is just be flexible. You know what I mean? And the more you can prepare beforehand, The better. And just have a really open mind and just work with it, you know what I mean? At the end of the day, that cliché, the show must go on.
The show must go on.
So you just gotta make it work, you know? We've done shows in broom closets with no power and in the dark and just crazy stuff. So it's really, it kind of just ends up being a great story at the end. Like, oh my God, remember that one show we did? That was a nightmare. But it's those memories that you have that kind of make it worth it. And, you know, in the moment it's crazy, but you look back and you're like, oh, I love that.
So yeah. So how do all of these professionals gets so lucky to work with you guys.
Yeah, I'm very lucky myself. I'm the Master Session Ambassador for Davines, an Italian brand out of Italy, obviously, who make hair care products and styling products. To me, they're the best in the world. I love them. They're all naturally based extracts and sustainable ingredients. So it's really a pleasure to work with them, and the products are incredible. So through that, I do a lot of education. So I travel around the world basically every week teaching and sharing, you know, what we do here in the salon world and vice versa. So I get the honor to work with all of these great hairstylists and talented people from around the world.
Wow.
And then they come and do a training with us if they are interested in coming and working in this chaos.
Yes.
And it's a dream come true for a lot of people, as it was for me. So I remember my first time, my mentor gave me an opportunity and invited me, and I didn't know what I was doing, and I was thrown to the wolves, and it was an absolute— just, I don't know, I just became so obsessed with it because I was like, what is this pressure, you know? But I had to learn the skill set because this type of work that we do backstage at Fashion Week and the salon skills are a little different. Right.
So, and this is such a quick pace.
Yeah.
And you don't know these people. It's people you're meeting the first time.
You have no idea. And you have girls from all over, different hair textures coming from different shows with, you know, there's no shampoo bowls here. You can't start over. So you really have to know how to be flexible and work with that stuff and And have those strong fashion foundations versus just the salon. You know, in the salon it takes usually roughly 30 to 45 minutes to do a nice blowout for the average hairstylist. We have to do it in 8 to 10 minutes at max.
Oh my goodness.
You know what I mean? And it has to be perfectly polished so when it hits the runway, you know, there's no Photoshop or retouching or little filters on Instagram. So it has to be—
I will tell you, yesterday everyone coming down the runway looked magnificent. And it was incredible to see the little kids come through and even their makeup matched the other models. So it was very uniform. Some of them were incredibly special, and, and you can see it from anywhere in the room. Yep. So it was a big impact.
Yeah, no, this is a great event. We love working with these guys. You know, always, you know, room to grow and just make it better. But, you know, we're working together as a team and a family, and that's what it's all about. I love it.
I love it. We've met a few of your team members in the event, and all of them are just so excited to be part of your team. And they feel really privileged to not only know the products but to know you and to know the whole group. And yeah, I can see it's quite an honor to be here.
Yeah, and for me, it's an honor for them to believe in me and want to work with us, you know, here in this crazy environment because yeah, it's just, it's awesome. And I know how special it is and how much it meant to me, so that's why I wanted to pay it forward, you know. And if I was ever in the position to help other people with their dreams, if their heart's in the right place and their intentions are good, I'm all about that.
I think we need more Josephs in the world because that is the views. When you love making other people's dreams come true, that, that's amazing.
It really is a special thing that, you know, even just making someone smile for the day is awesome, you know what I mean? Just give them a little compliment or whatever, and I think we need more of that right now. I think we always need that, but—
Well, they always say hire for attitude and train for skill, and you're getting both the great attitudes and the great skills.
That's the really important important part for us is the education element, right? To make sure that when they do come here, they aren't thrown to the lions and wolves like I was.
Oh.
You know, I was like, oh my God. And, you know, I'm a lot nicer than the people that I kind of worked with, uh, you know, who just— it's not because they were mean, they just have a standard that, hey, if you're in this environment, right, you have to know how to do this type of stuff. And if you don't, then, you know, go learn it and then maybe come back or whatever. Um, and that, that window to come back when that door and that opportunity doesn't really exist because this is such an exclusive thing.
Right.
And I kind of wanted to make that a little— not take away the exclusivity because it's so great, but just open the door for people who really had good intentions, like I said. But making sure that that education and training element is involved first so that when they come here, they have a good, you know, they have a success and they have a good experience. And then they can be like, oh my God, that was— that lived up to my dreams, instead of being like, oh, all I did was get yelled at and I didn't know what I was doing and I got lost and it was just overcomplicated. So, you know, so that's why we set up the workshop and then they come and they can— they know a little bit of what they can do.
Well, thank you for bringing more beauty in the world.
Thank you.
And thank you for sharing your positive attitude and your dreams, and it really helps the whole planet, not just the people in this room.
