I had attended the German World Hair Championships in 1988, and one of the requirements to be included in the team was by gaining points from International competitions. We trained every two weeks in different locations in the UK, but mainly in London. Our trainer was Colin Lewis who held the title of World Champion, so we were very fortunate that Colin shared his skills with the squad. Our manager was Christopher Mann of Salisbury, he, also a very gifted talented man that came up with the ideas and between him and Colin, we executed the design theme for that season.
We all aimed to reproduce the team style with our own version of this style. All the costs were met by ourselves, such as travelling to London and competing in Europe, but once chosen for the World Cup Team, these expenses were met by the Official body of The Fellowship of Hair Artists and the National Hairdressers' Federation. Once we had our style, we all went home and started to make our hairpieces, Mark Hill was by far the best at making these pieces, but the competition was not all about one section, it was a combination of points achieved by winning different points in each section.
Sometimes I would be lied awake in bed at 3am and get some inspiration, so I would get up and dress my piece and often edge it with individual diamontes, each jewel had to be stuck on with glue, evenly spaced to perfection and follow the shape of the piece, to be stylistic, artful and show your artistic side..... the piece had to follow the shape and style of the hair.......It had to be perfect, with not one hair out of place, we would carry these in a hat box and often on to the aeroplane and placed on our laps, as they could not be knocked and mis-handled(I will upload photos soon.)This skill factor brought out the artistic side of the team.
The team all got on well, but Tino Constantinou always kept his style close to his heart, often changing it at last minute, but he was previously in the Men's Team and his work often lacked the softness of most of the ladies team, but he was a winner, his brother Simon Constantinou was competing in the mens team at the same time, and Michael competed in the Junior Team, what a proud moment that must have been for their families.
That season I competed in Germany, Italy, France, Luxembourg, Holland and Belgium, collecting medals en-route. But now it is 1990 and it is the turn of Rotterdam to host the championships. The UK Ladies' Team had not won the title of World Champions, but the Men's Team had and we felt reminded of this all the time and the men this year were gaining wins everywhere, John Phelps was flying high as was Simon Constantinou........
As this was my first World Championships, I was entered into the Reserve Team Competition, jheld on the same day, this was to gain experience and support the three competitors who were representing United Kingdom....Mark Hill, Liz Shipton and Simon Constantinou, where nas Christine, Fay and myself was in the reserves. There was 50 in the reserve competition and I finished 7th in the championship.....I was so pleased to be in the top ten!
One of the difficulties in maintaining continuity with the models syle and hair, was hoping your model would be able to get time off work or college for practise, days off for competing and mostly, letting you do what you want to their hair with colour and cut, this was not easy, I was very fortunate as Marcia was my business partner so I could practise after work and Dionne was always willing to work with Marcia and I. Often we would get to the competitions and one of the team would have a new model, but we all did our best to include her in our fun time as well as serious training.
I had the Salon to run as well as compete and Katy was only six, so my friend Sharon would often step in and help as well as my husband, who took time off to look after the children whilst I travelled competing. But it was tiring, the next year was the European Chapionships in Paris, so I was really looking forward to competing there.......Ooh La La!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment