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Last Updated:
Mar 19th, 2008 - 07:43:02 |
orman
Wagner can’t stand fashion shows. The man who now runs Roseville’s
London Calling Salon and the Real Big Hair Ball started out as a hired
gun doing hair and airbrushing makeup at — gasp! — fashion shows. “I
hate fashion shows, I truly do,” he said. “It’s one of the things that
I just hate, ‘cause they’re boring. It’s like, ‘Kill me!’”
When
Wagner got hired to do an out-of-town designer’s Detroit fashion show
in 1986, he made the designer an offer he couldn’t refuse. “I told the
guy, ‘Hey, if you let me do a pre-fashion show, do whatever I want,
I’ll do your makeup for free,’” Wagner recalled. The designer took him
up on the deal. "So (for the pre-show) I had three or four models, big
wacky hair, a little outrageous body makeup and then I chopped the
models’ hair up with hedge clippers — on the catwalk. Everyone went
crazy. Then, afterwards, the fashion show went on and it was kind of
anti-climactic. And I liked doing it! I saw then, ‘Wow, people really
like this craziness.’”
That pre-show grew into the show itself
and the Hair Ball was born. “It’s a parody of fashion shows and hair
shows — without a doubt,” Wagner said. “You’ll see some really
beautiful hair and makeup — some really, really nice stuff, but then
you’re also gonna see some of the wackiest stuff you’ve ever seen. So,
it’s a little bit of both, but it is a parody of both. As I always say:
Pure performance art.”
By the mid-‘90s, other area salons joined
in the fun and the event grew into the Real Big Hair Ball. Twenty years
on, the Hair Ball remains a wild night of hair, fashion, comedy and
performance art. It’s been so successful that Wagner plans to take the
concept “on tour” in 2007 by staging Hair Balls in cities around the
U.S.
“You know what people want in Detroit — and across the
country — they just want pure entertainment,” Wagner said. “When they
go to the Hair Ball, what they’re gonna see is, first of all, some
great hairdressers doing some phenomenal work — but it’s pure
entertainment.” | RDW
Real Big Hair Ball • October 15 • Royal Oak Music Theatre
A
portion of the ticket price goes to benefit the Juvenile Diabetes
Research Foundation. More info: realbighairball.com, hairball.info or
call 586.778.6379.
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