February 26, 2008

The man behind Marion Cotillard's Oscar hair

Veteran hair stylist Robert Vetica knew immediately upon watching "La Vie En Rose" that there was something remarkable about Marion Cotillard. He walked out of the movie theatre and got on the phone to his agent immediately. "I have got to meet this woman!" he said. His agent called her publicist every week for months, even though she already had people she worked with in New York, and her own French team.
For Vetica, it was the first time he had pursued an actress like this. After all, it's not like he needs the work—he's been doing stars’ hair (Renee Zellweger, Hilary Swank, Kate Hudson, Naomi Watts) for years.
The meeting with Cotillard finally came about in the fall. "I walked in the door and I was like 'oh my god'," he recalls. "First of all, she looked like she was 21. Then she said to me, 'Oh, I'm not so young.' And I knew I had fallen in love with this girl."
I spoke with Robert shortly before he created Cotillard's beautiful Veronica Lake side-sweep for the Oscars. At first, he seemed mildly perturbed when I asked him what he was planning to do to her hair. "I don't know baby! I won't know until I get there," he said. Each hairstyle is the product of a unique alchemy, he says, sparked by the energy between he and the actress, the occasion, the dress, the makeup, and the products (He used Fekkai Coiff Shape and Set Mist ($28) and Fekkai Coiff Sheer Hold ($23) on Cotillard on Oscar night).
Marion, he says, is a joy to work with. "She doesn't even look in the mirror afterwards," he says. "She has complete trust and confidence, in herself and in me."

Vetica was based in Milan for several years and misses the freedom he had in Europe, where magazines and actresses are much more willing to experiment. He recently worked with Naomi Watts on a story for Italian Vogue, shot by Ellen von Unwerth. "She was a 1940s actress in this story...it was marvelous. But here, in the last few years, everyone has become sort of generic-looking," he sniffed. “You have to always remember that you are working with a celebrity that has a career, so you can't change their look too much."
So why are we more conservative in America, I asked?
“The problem today is this: there's so much scrutiny," he said. "I am speaking from a personal point of view. There is so much criticism by so many press, so many people who know nothing about fashion or art, making decisions about what looks good and what doesn’t. And anything different in their eyes is not acceptable. Which is why everyone wears the basic Hollywood hair. That parted-in-the-middle wave thing that every person has on every cover. Sometimes it is hard to even distinguish who the person is.”
Maybe Vetica should start a Hollywood hair revolution, I suggested?
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe.”

(Robert Vetica 's book about celebrity hairstyling comes out in 2009...we'll keep you posted)

February 26, 2008 in BEAUTY | Permalink