After the World Championships in Rotterdam, it was back to the drawing board to create a 'new design' for the UK team, this was in Christofer Mann's and Colin Lewis' hands, our manager and trainer. I remember being in a training session in Birmingham and watching Chris' hands work almost like a conductor with a Baton, Liz Shipton and I looked at each other and mouthed the words "what's he doing?".....Chris said will someone pass me an A4 piece of paper and a stapler please, this was the start of the creation. Up until now the hairpieces in the Gala section of the competition was placed within the hair at the crown of the hair, but now, this new shape was to sit in the central nape, and almost plaiting and twisting towards the front. We still only had 35 mins to convert the model's hair from the previous day style to the glamorous evening style. This was hairdressing at the very best that you can imagine, hairpieces had to be unique, individual and match the models hair so it's continuity was almost un-noticed.
The pieces were hand made with a monofilament base, we then stripped the base to a single layer of monofilament, then trimmed the base to the exact requirements that the competition rules requested. Each piece of hair was then colour matched, lightened and shaded with tint. We then razor cut the piece to reduce the density to a workable piece of art, after moulding our piece on a cork board, we then pinned it in to shape and sprayed Elnett on to the piece and as it dried I lightly stroked my fingers over the piece to smooth down any stray hairs. This process was repeated several times until my mastepiece was to my satisfaction. I then stuck minute diamontes to the edge of the piece and followed the pieces' movement with jewels. The piece was then placed to a poly head and placed in to a hat box for transportation.
We were all happy with this new design and after our training session, we went to our homes all over the country to create our masterpiece. Liz Shipton & Tino lived in Wales, Chris was in Scotland, Julio, Mark and I was from Yorkshire, so as you can imagine from the areas we all travelled, we were a dedicated team. We travelled to Paris, yet no matter how hard we practised, the Ladies' team never picked up a medal, where as the men's team, were still finding Gold.
Mark Hill was the most artistic in the Gala Style in our team, but even Mark was left disappointed. We all went back to our Hotel exhausted, gradually all hitting the pillow, except this particular evening Mark 'hyperMark' Hill, asked if someone would go for a stroll, go on then I said as Mark and I were good friends and Paula was exhausted...just a bit of fresh air he said, infront of us seemed a very small Arc de Triomph, 4 miles later we reached the Arc and just as he was about to walk back, he shouted 'come on Ang', this won't take that long, I stood until I got a taxi of which he joined me.....boy did I sleep well that night, the night the Arc got bigger and bigger.
The next day we all met up for lunch before a quick trip up the tower, Everyone was ordering their meal safely until Bob said "I am having the Beef Tartare".......little did he imagine what was coming to the table, the Raw Beef and Raw uncooked egg was presented to him by the waiter of which Bob yells out "Is the cooker broke?.....has the chef walked out?.....we were all in fits of laughter as he thought he was ordering steak with Tartare Sauce, I'll never forget the laughter from everyone that lunch time in Paris.
We were all happy with this new design and after our training session, we went to our homes all over the country to create our masterpiece. Liz Shipton & Tino lived in Wales, Chris was in Scotland, Julio, Mark and I was from Yorkshire, so as you can imagine from the areas we all travelled, we were a dedicated team. We travelled to Paris, yet no matter how hard we practised, the Ladies' team never picked up a medal, where as the men's team, were still finding Gold.
Mark Hill was the most artistic in the Gala Style in our team, but even Mark was left disappointed. We all went back to our Hotel exhausted, gradually all hitting the pillow, except this particular evening Mark 'hyperMark' Hill, asked if someone would go for a stroll, go on then I said as Mark and I were good friends and Paula was exhausted...just a bit of fresh air he said, infront of us seemed a very small Arc de Triomph, 4 miles later we reached the Arc and just as he was about to walk back, he shouted 'come on Ang', this won't take that long, I stood until I got a taxi of which he joined me.....boy did I sleep well that night, the night the Arc got bigger and bigger.
The next day we all met up for lunch before a quick trip up the tower, Everyone was ordering their meal safely until Bob said "I am having the Beef Tartare".......little did he imagine what was coming to the table, the Raw Beef and Raw uncooked egg was presented to him by the waiter of which Bob yells out "Is the cooker broke?.....has the chef walked out?.....we were all in fits of laughter as he thought he was ordering steak with Tartare Sauce, I'll never forget the laughter from everyone that lunch time in Paris.
