TalkBlack with Kevin.Murphy's style master James Furness

50's is good!

Kevin.Murphy style master James Furness was recently in Auckland to educate and spread the good word about the fab Australian hair brand. Grant Fell and Rachael Churchward sat down with him to discuss his path from opening United Notions salon in Ballarat at age 18 through to the K.M products like Powder.Puff and Motion.Lotion that are taking the hair world by storm. All photos from the Stephen Marr, Department Store event by Stephen Tilley.

Put your hands in the hair and 

wave it like you just don't care!

Grant Fell & Rachael Churchward: What does your role as Kevin.Murphy Style Master entail? James Furness: Basically, I look after all of the education and image of the brand through Australia, New Zealand and in the future, Japan and China. I also work very closely with Kevin on the development of all of the products and of the styling and the image of everything that we put out. GF: Where does Kevin Murphy retail, which countries? JF: Kevin.Murphy sells throughout the USA, in our first year we were the number one selling start up product in the history of American (hair industry products). A start up product is a product that doesn’t have any other legs, yeah? If you look at L’Oreal, they have all of these other legs, then they go in with a product, so it has ‘legs,’ whereas this was a brand new product and it’s just going great guns over there. Kevin.Murphy can also be found right through Europe, we still have about ten or twelve countries to cover but it is particularly massive in London at the moment and through Northern Europe. The next territory to capture is Japan and China. RC: I tend to like more targeted brands like Kevin.Murphy rather than mass market brands in general. Kevin.Murphy is very good at reaching its customer. JF: We’ve put a lot of work into the development of our products. Quite often we will sit down and have a discussion about who is the woman of our times. We’ll create that woman and from there go onto her needs; what does she love, what does she have, what does she taste, what does she want and we’ll start to develop the product for that. It ends up giving the product realism without having to say too much. We are also currently going through a change in our ethos, where, instead of trying to create magicians as hairdressers, we are trying to create real people…GF: You have a significant background as a session stylist? JF: Yeah, I have been hairdressing for twenty-four years and have had my own business for pretty much the entire time. I’ve looked after Australian Fashion Week for about seven years GF: Working with Schwarzkopf? JF: That was with Schwarzkopf, yes. I have been with Kevin now for five years and have done a lot of editorial work in Sydney but also in Europe, I lived in Europe for two years. 

Crimped perfectly for the backdrop

GF: I like the name of your first salon, United Notions… JF: I was 18 when I opened that up, I actually made all of the furniture myself and did the whole thing, it was a great experience. RC: Was that in Melbourne? JF: No, that was actually in Ballarat of all places. I grew up in Ballarat and moved to Melbourne when I was fifteen to do my apprenticeship, lived in a caravan in the back of a church, and then returned to Ballarat and set this up. I sold United Notions, went to work in a salon, and then opened up another place called Geisha. With Geisha we wanted to create a business that would turn our industry on its ears. The industry then was really lacking direction, purpose and service…GF: Was it like a spa? JF: Yeah, it was a spa, 600 square metres in Little Collins St, above Scanlon Theodore. You’d basically come up, go into a change room, put on a gown, your clothes would go into a locker, and they’d get pressed. We’d sit down on mats and have a chat about what we were going to do and then go through and have the experience. Upstairs we had floating firewalls, stone gardens, six private rooms with shoji screens, floating beds with flowers all around them, massage rooms, it was a fantastic experience. GF: There wouldn’t have been many spas around back then? JF: There was nothing like it in the world basically, except Japan. We were lucky too as Memoirs of a Geisha came out and everyone went quite Japanese around that time, eating sushi and going crazy. We were very lucky as the whole Geisha experience of being taken by the hand and through an experience was something that we were really guided by. It was basically, come into our salon and we will take you through an experience that you have never had before. When that ended I went to the UK with my wife Daniella Faella who was quite a big model at the time. I worked in a salon in London called The Lounge that was the hip salon for the DJ set; John Digweed, Sasha and those guys would come in and get their hair done. When we returned to Melbourne we set up Moist which was a cool little place with glass roof, concrete wall-to-wall, really chilled with white floors, a really relaxed place. We had that for seven years, it was terrific. 

James Furness

GF: Are there any Kevin.Murphy salons? JF: No. We have the brand and we go around educating and representing it. We put everything that we can into the education and the image of the brand. All of the people that make the serious decisions about the direction of the brand are out on the streets doing the education and we are really proud of that, we will keep that going no matter how big we get. 30% of our entire turnover goes back into education, we are very keen to ensure our culture is spread out there and that people really follow onto it and inspire themselves. GF: What do you do in an educational sense when you go into a salon like, say Ryder? JF: With Ryder, basically, I just wanted to go into the salon and see where Greg (Murrell) works, get a real feel for who Greg is and what his business is like. I met him on Monday night, so we had a bit of an ‘inspire me’ night, a bit of a dirty night and got everybody excited. I was really intrigued by Ryder and wanted to see where Greg was at. It was really good to see that and hopefully we can keep in touch from that night, I’m very intrigued by Greg himself and will hopefully spend some more time with him, his direction is really what Kevin.Murphy is all about and where we are going. The salon I have now is on a rooftop of a building, only three guys there, it’s extremely boutique…RC: What’s that salon called? JF: It’s called 579. We don’t advertise, we don’t have a sign on the door. It’s in Chapel St, South Yarra. GF: That is boutique in the extreme! Tell us about the latest Kevin.Murphy product, Powder.Puff, there is a lot of excitement about this product. JF: Powder.Puff is probably the grittiest, biggest product we have. It is the first of the powders that have hit the market that is water soluble, so it will rinse out with water. Everyone else in the market has to be washed out. It is pretty much engineered to give that extra lift off the roots.

RC: How do you apply it? JF: You don’t need a lot; just a few sprinkles in your hand then knock it into your roots. A tiny bit here, a tiny bit there, then you rub it in to the roots and it activates, it morphs…GF: Does it give body? JF: Yes, it does and can very quickly go three times as big and the great thing about it is that it has memory, all Kevin.Murphy styling products have memories in them from the session spray, through to Anti.Gravity to this so you can brush your hair after it is in there and it will go back to where you were before…which is terrific. GF: Technically how does that work? JF: That’s a good question and I can’t tell you exactly, it’s a bit of a secret, the magic sprinkles! RC: I find in the morning, if I squeeze Motion.Lotion into my hair, just put a little bit in and spin it through the curl, it just drops back in this smooth way. JF: Yeah Motion.Lotion is a fantastic product…certainly one of my favourites. GF: Is there anything new coming out of the prolific Kevin.Murphy lab? JF: Yeah, quite a few. There’s a new mousse coming out which will be fantastic. We also have some new styling equipment coming out, some wavers, which are like big bricks that you click into the hair. You can do one, then another, then another. Then you put Heat.Defence on, which is our volumising setting spray. You dry it off, take the wavers out and you get really big, deep waves. We also have a new hairspray coming out that is very exciting. It is the biggest holding hairspray that I have ever worked with, but the product is invisible when you touch, so you can’t feel it – it makes your hair go bang and dirty, but you can’t feel it, which is great. It’s an amazing product. GF: Tell us about your role at the recent Melbourne Spring Carnival? JF: We decided that instead of encouraging our clients to wear hats and fascinators we would turn their hair into hats. We started crimping hair, twisting it, creating all of these shapes, sewing the hair up – all inspired by a 50’s energy to it. Then we also teased hair right out with brushes, put hair nets over it, really dried it hard then brushed it, to give us pliability and foundations to get shapes. We’re really big on crimping at the moment. GF: In a nutshell, how would you describe the Kevin.Murphy brand JF: I think Kevin.Murphy is probably, successfully and will become even more successfully, the brand of the moment, as far as fashion in hair goes. It definitely covers every single genre from six-year-olds right through to eighty-year-olds and it creates an effortless bond of stimulation for people…

TalkBlack with Jimmy D's James Dobson

Above: James Dobson by Guy Coombes. 

All photos below by Aaron K

After a critically and commercially successful show at NZ Fashion Week, Jimmy D, aka James Dobson is excited about the future of the semi-eponymous label which he describes as 'darkness and light' and is equally excited about his retail and online operation Children of Vision with Vicky Chan. In the first of an on-going series of TalkBlack discussions here on Blacklog, Grant Fell and Rachael Churchward pop down to the five and dime with Jimmy D to talk about Norwegian black metal, chiffon punk, Ms 45 and selling Bernhard Willhelm back to Europeans...

Grant Fell & Rachael Churchward: Tell us about your year James, 2010, what’s been happening? James Dobson: Well…lots I guess…Spring/Summer was a good solid collection for me, the few collections before that were a little bit smaller as I was opening the store and focusing on that. Summer, that is in store now, flowed into the Winter collection I have just done and I guess I have just been refocusing on the brand. The store is going from strength to strength… RC: Who are you stocking at Children of Vision now? JD: We’ve got Bernhard Willhelm… GF: Gary Bigeni? JD: Yeah, Gary Bigeni, Romance Was Born, Deadly Ponies, Rad Hourani – Rad by Rad Hourani which is actually his diffusion line but very similar silhouettes and really good fabrics, that’s awesome…Jimmy D of course and many others. GF: How do you go about buying for the store? JD: Vicky and myself go overseas twice a year now to buy and we always have a little wish list of labels that we are after and that we hope to check out while we are over there. We’ve been doing Rad for two or three seasons now. We’re actually doing less Australian labels than we were when we initially opened as we are finding that the internationals are working really well for us. Bernhard for example, has developed a really strong following since we opened, so just focusing on building that. GF: I guess that reflects that New Zealanders are becoming a lot more clued up on quality labels… JD: Yeah definitely and to be honest it is no harder importing a label from Paris than it is from Australia, it is the same principle… RC: And also labels like Bernhard Willhelm and Rad Hourani go very well with your own aesthetic. JD: Exactly. We get people who will buy a Rad jacket with a Jimmy D dress. I think there is always that duality in what I do, there is that darkness and that androgynous thing… RC: Talk about that, what is the philosophy behind Jimmy D? JD: I think I have always been drawn to contrasts within the collections. This season it is more evident than ever I suppose, there is this kind of sporty element and then there are floor-length, silk, georgette dresses as well. I’m a bit schizophrenic like that, as soon as something gets too pretty in my head, I have to do the opposite or do something that feels new to me. Like doing a floaty chiffon skirt and matching it with a sporty crop top, I like juxtaposition… RC: Opposites attract. JD: Totally. Without being too overt about it, I am definitely drawn to contrast.

GF: Who have you collaborated with on this range? JD: I had a few collaborations on the go this season. I worked with Claire and Greg of Meadowlark on the jewellery. I knew I wanted quite an industrial feel for the accessories, I couldn't imagine pretty pendants hanging around their necks. Chris actually had an old school 90's rubber choker that he rediscovered and this idea of rubber tubing felt really fresh and right for the collection. After sitting down with the Meadowlark guys we knew that the rubber needed elevating in some way so we designed this silver rose thorn that adorns all of the pieces. We also wanted some jewellery pieces that were in chain but without getting too pretty and necklacey with it - so I gave Claire some outlines of singlets and oversize tees that she interpreted in fine jewellery chain. They have a slightly Nordic, Medieval feel that I really like. It's great working with those guys, they are super talented. This range I also worked with Andrew McLeod on the prints. I had been wanting to work with him for a few seasons but we are both quite shy in that respect so it wasn’t until he came into the store with his partner Liz Maw and I was like, “Hey, I really love your work!” I had seen his artwork and also the band t-shirts that he had done. He is in a band called Evil Ocean and is also in Prince Diana with Shaun Thomas McGill. GF: Great band names! JD: When I saw the t-shirts that he did for Prince Diana, I realised how talented he was. They are really gothic and witchy and dark. In the early stages of working on this collection I was imagining the girl who would be wearing the clothes. She would be walking down the street, she’d be listening to really heavy music and I felt like I needed a band type of print to go with it. GF: Is that the kind of girl you see wearing your clothes? JD: For this collection particularly, it was about tough girls, there was definitely an… etherealness… GF: What was the name of the collection? JD: 'Until The Light Takes Us'…Andrew came in and showed me these Norwegian black metal album covers and the prints grew out of those as a lot of black metal album cover artwork is about naturalistic imagery; trees, bracken, woods that sort of thing… GF: Norwegian wood! JD: Ha yeah, so Andrew created these faux metal album covers, with scratchy abstract band names and the collection was also inspired by a movie called Ms 45… RC: Ms 45? JD: Yeah, it is an 80’s cult film about a mute girl who, through a series of circumstances, becomes this kind of man-hating, gun-toting killer. At the beginning of the film she is really quite a conservative woman and by the end of the film she has donned a 45 and is taking revenge. I got it sent up from Aro Street (Video store) in Wellington. It was the only place that had a VHS of it in NZ (Laughs). RC: I think this range is beautiful and edgy, genderless and confident. It is feminine without having to wear a little black dress. JD: Thanks, and I think that’s the way that we styled it too, mixing the punky, t-shirty pieces over a silk or chiffon dress. In reality, at retail, it tends to go either way but I like visualising it all together. The truth is you tend to get the young girls coming in and buying the punky singlet and the older customers that come in are drawn to the silks. For me it is definitely about the two things coming together. 

GF: We missed your fashion week show this year unfortunately. RC: I was locked into Huffer world. There was some really good feedback to your show though, really positive… JD: I was really pleased. I had an idea of how I wanted it to look in my head, my last solo show was in 2006 so I had this vision of how I wanted this show to look. It was good, I forgot how much you challenge yourself, not just the fact that there will be a whole room full of people turning up to watch it, but also, you have to have enough tops to go with the bottoms (Laughs) – you have to create the whole story that is in your head as well. You can’t just feel like you’ve done it at a certain point, you have to get to that twenty outfit mark at least. I really enjoyed the challenge and I am pleased with how it looks. GF: What sort of music did you use, we always think music is very important in shows. JD: Totally, well Andrew came in and dropped off one of his Evil Ocean CDs amidst the process and I put it on one day and thought, “that’s perfect,” because he was referencing that black metal sound as well in his music. It just made sense, so we used that as the opening and closing tracks and there was some Crystal Castles, Zola Jesus and No Bra in there as well. There are some hard out sounds in there but also some beautiful ethereal bits as well. RC: A bit like your range! Music is important, all the elements of a show are important. I am one of those people that sits out the front and if one or several of the key elements aren’t working, it is very obvious. JD: Music, styling, models, make-up, hair... There has to be a journey with a show. I get bored if the last outfit is the same as the first, you have to take people somewhere. RC: Sometimes I watch a show and afterwards I feel like running out the back and saying, “You know what? Your show was really great but your music sucked!” I think you have to surprise people with the music and supporting elements and make them a little bit uncomfortable, pique their interest further… JD: Exactly. Some of the best shows that Chris and I saw overseas recently had a slightly uncomfortable aggression in the music… 

GF: How long has Jimmy D been going? JD: I’m six years into it now. I remember the first season, or the first couple of seasons actually, there was all of this pressure. You feel that you have to get bigger, that you have to double your stores each season, you kind of feel like you are stepping on this rollercoaster that you can’t get off. Now I know how I want to run my business, I know what is manageable… RC: How is the Children of Vision online store going? JD: Good, really good. I think that the labels we have, have such a good reputation, we are shipping stuff to Hong Kong, Europe, Australia… GF: So you are receiving clothes from say Bernhard Willhelm in Europe and then shipping them back to Europe? JD: Yeah! I know, it’s crazy… GF: Is it the price point? JD: Yes, and it is also about the edit. Bernhard is still a cult label everywhere really. I think there is only one store in London that even stocks Bernhard. That’s what I love about it, we are buying part of a legacy really. We have a book in store now, as he recently did a retrospective in Germany, and there are pieces that we have had in our store that are on the pages of the book. You are buying part of a legacy, which I like… 

GF: Have you ever seen someone wearing Jimmy D in such a way that you have been blown away by their personal style? JD: Yeah, it’s always such a buzz seeing people wearing (Jimmy D) and that’s one of the things about the label, a lot of the clothes can be worn in so many different ways that it’s not prescribing how people should dress. I don’t like the idea that people just take a look off the catwalk and replicate it. RC: And so many people do, it’s boring… JD: I don’t want clones, I don’t want little Jimmy D clones, or me saying, “this is how you should wear it.” Hopefully I am giving people the tools to wear it with something else or mix it in a different way. GF: Tell us about your collaboration with (artist) Erin Forsyth? JD: We are working on some tote bags at the moment, which we will hopefully release before Christmas. Erin is awesome. Erin and Alex Hoyles collaborated on a video as well, which we are playing in the window at Children of Vision at the moment. It is quite lo-fi and glitchy, really fast. We have all of these amazing labels coming into the store so we wanted to give people a preview of what is coming with the video in the window. RC: Then of course, there is your collaboration with Chris Lorimer your stylist, PR man and partner. JD: Yes, we are like you guys, we are always talking about the label, talking through inspirations… GF: What is on the agenda for James Dobson over the next few months? JD: I’m really starting to think about next summer obviously, mapping that out. Then there is a buying trip in February over to Paris. We are doing an installation with the winter collection, which will go in store February/March and we’ll launch that collection. We are also planning to take that down to another store too. GF: Jimmy D in a few words? JD: Ummm… RC: Grant, that’s a question that you give someone a day or two to answer! (Laughs) JD: I think it’s dark but at the same time darkly humorous, darkness and light. If things get too serious I need to throw a little light-heartedness somewhere in there…contrast again…