Neville at V&A's Fashion in Motion – with Ralph & Russo

It was certainly a night of fashion and hair e/motion at London's Victoria & Albert Museum last week – what I can only describe as a visual fusion par excellence. The latest designers to feature in the V&A Fashion in Motion showcase were British couturiers Ralph & Russo, famed for their luxurious, fairy-tale aesthetics and painstakingly detailed craftsmanship. As you hopefully all know, Ralph & Russo is the ONLY British brand to show at Paris Haute Couture Week which is the highest accolade in fashion's hierarchy of excellence... the 'dog's Tuxedo' of bespoke!

Amber le Bon and the 3,900 hour wedding dress embroidery… 

From all my time spent with them backstage and at their showrooms in Paris and London, I can vouch that their collections use the finest fabrics and techniques with the garments embellished by a team of skilled embroiders trained at the Parisian house of Lesage. I was privy again to see this in Paris during the Haute Couture Week – including a spectacular wedding dress that took a cumulative 3,900 hours of work on embroidery alone chosen again as a finale for the V&A show in London.

It was a heart-stopping moment for me to witness our friend and Neville client, Amber Le Bon wearing this dress at the show that reflected the best of the British fashion, skill and beauty in our home-city at the historic, true-blue venue.

Team Neville in the spotlight

This was the first Ralph & Russo appearance at the V&A, although my team has already experienced these famed rooms, wings and corridors both behind the scenes and under the spotlight at the Jenny Packham show last year. Once again our hair team was headed by Stephen Low, with make up in the trusted hands of MAC artist Debby and nails by Lisa Smith using CND. My Neville team was stronger and better for one more addition and that is our trusted friend and colleague from New York, Joseph Di Maggion, who already 'fought with us' in the 'backstage trenches' of NY and Seoul Fashion Weeks!

To watch Stephen and Joseph work together is to experience styling greatness. Their dedication and intensity about the craft sometimes leaves me speechless (and you know how rarely that happens!) It goes even further… just listening to them converse makes my mind spark with ideas on all one singular theme – hair.

Emotion and proportion in perfect harmony
The show at the V&A was truly sensational. I've heard once the great Donald Potard, who created the Jean Paul Gaultier house, introducing this iconic designer to couture, say that fashion is all about 'emotion and proportion'. This time the emotion was transported into a fairy-tale with a dream like creations not just 'moving' but 'gliding' on the catwalk. The 'emotion' of the collection transported me to the Grace Kelly era where suddenly my reality felt like a strip of super-refined beaded silk. The girls, the dresses, the hair, the make-up and the nails were all surreal. 

Stephen Low was once again the perfect fit for this hair-motional vision as the hair looked like it had a very delicate,almost metallic reflection but with a modern fluidity on a super-chic look. The show at the V&A felt like a live broadcast of the modern fashion fairy tale, and transported us all to a heavenly state of the mind where usually only dreams exist.

Love, Elena

THIS is London… Neville and Palmer Harding at London Fashion Week

THIS is London..Neville's home city

..and that is exactly what I like to shout from the top of my lungs every time we embark on the slightly mad but also highly original showcase circuit at London Fashion Week. And if our home-grown fashion week is all about discovering and nurturing young designers, my team and I can say the same – we take no greater pleasure than working alongside those bright stars of the future.

The hair-style that Stephen Low, the head of Neville's team, created for the 'Antipodium' presentation at the Swiss Church in Covent Garden was inspired by David Bowie's 'Life on Mars' video and it was all about re-working modern style mullets. The cast of models was purposely androgynous but to actually create those effortlessly messy, just-out-of-bed curls was fairly laborious. Only the hair-stylists know how much effort goes into a seemingly effortless look. It's the same for so called 'nude' make-up. It's never easy and it's hardly bare. It's all about 'dressing' and 'camouflage'. And 'touching' and 're-touching ' until the model gets into that spot of million flashbulbs...

 

As for the look for the Palmer Harding SS15 collection, it was once again a matter of seamless simplicity and hair that looks healthy and freshly blow-dried with almost invisible structure. It's the hair-style that worked beautifully with a very diverse cast of models chosen for this show and most fittingly with Jan Stimple, who has proved us all that a good model doesn't have the sell-by-date.

As a beauty and a lifestyle blogger myself it took me a little by surprise the the majority of media coverage from backstage at London Fashion Week focused so much on established names in hair-dressing and the rest was mainly under the umbrella of big hair-sponsors, such as Tony & Guy or L'Oreal Professionals. There were some reports where the creative work of hairstylists wasn't properly credited nor described as it wasn't relevant to the catwalk look. As much as LFW is a renowned design talent incubator, London is also a fashion hair-dressing capital of the world. Our fashion week should also serve as a breeding ground for the hair-stylists and a source of inspiration for the young-wannabes. And it's not always the most important thing to get to the biggest designers to style. The best work always shines through and in the case of Stephen Low and my team, sometimes appears on the British Fashion Council's Twitter page as the most representative.

Elena

It's a New York state of hair… and heart

'I know that you've been waiting for my impressions from New York Fashion Week in September and that unique state of mind every time I happen to be in this incredible city. It was the second appearance at the Lincoln centre for my Neville team of true hair-artists and the fourth collaboration with Lie Sang Bong, the designer whose creative vision complements our own on so many levels.

Mr Lie's SS15 collection was a celebration of life and joy despite being dedicated to children who recently lost their lives in the Korean sea and I have to say that this underlying story have transported my Neville team in surreal state of mind even backstage. It added that extra element of spirituality that is so rarely seen or felt at international fashion presentations these days because it was about a genuine emotion and the sentiment.

  

I've also been blessed to have on my team Stephen Low whose creativity as well as his personal demeanour is one of pure gentleness and sensitivity that is so rare among celebrated hairdressers of today. He is all about work and inner-emotion that he is channelling into the most heart-stopping creations seen in hairstyle both in salon and in session work. And when he is working with designers such as Lie Sang Bong who is both a couturier and a ready-to-wear craftsman Stephen is truly running his talent on all cylinders and beyond.

For this show we were working with our colleagues from New York that Stephen and I love and respect very much. It was amazing to see how much passion for hair could unite the continents. It looked like they've always worked together. They didn't even need to speak..Stephen's glance was enough for them to understand every move and most importantly the final look for the hair. As always 'the finish' was just flawless and complemented the designer's in its essence.

The achievement that I feel each time we get to New York Fashion Week is incredible. It's hard for me to believe that my Neville team has managed to get there through the strength of our work, and that we are able to do what we love the most in the world in one of the most important fashion cities on the planet. 

The trust, the respect and the honour that we've got as a London salon wasn't just a rare beat of that big NY heart. It was real.

Until next time,

Elena