Later, Balenciaga blonde. This season’s power hair colour is brunette

Brunettes overshadowed the Fall 2012 runways. Celia Ellenberg reports on the power colour.

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For two full seasons, Guido Palau made an indelible mark on the backstage beauty game by dyeing models’ hair a frothy colour often described as “Balenciaga blonde” because of its prevalence on Nicolas Ghesquière’s runway. But last September in Paris, the Redken creative consultant shocked the show-going set with some black magic—make that brown magic—by taking a previously platinum Kasia Struss to a warm shade of chocolate. “She just looks tougher with brown hair,” he said at the time.

It marked the beginning of what would become a phenomenon that dominated Fall 2012: a number of high-profile models—Patricia van der Vliet, Heidi Mount and Caitlin Lomax, to name a few—went from blonde to brunette, while another crew of mahogany-haired girls went even darker. “There was a feeling of gothic romance in the air that obviously says ‘dark,’” Palau says, pointing out that what becomes a hair trend is typically based on a gut feeling mixed with a touch of shock value. “In fashion you’re always dealing with extremes.”

The idea begins with the designer, Palau explains, and usually leads to a phone call to colourist Victoria Hunter of New York’s Whittemore House salon. “I use her more than anyone,” he says. Hunter was responsible for a number of the season’s biggest brunette moments—most notably dyeing van der Vliet darker not once, but twice. “When we first went from blonde to brunette, it was pretty,” Hunter recalls of the Dutch stunner’s transformation. “But as soon as she went black [for Calvin Klein], it was phenomenal.”

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