WORKING LUNCH.

WITH JON PULITANO.

 

When it comes to that special X Factor, Jon Pulitano has it by the bucketful. He’s tall and good-looking with a dark Italian complexion and sexy blue eyes that leave admirers of both genders swooning in the aisles. He also has a fashionable street edge, typically sporting skinny jeans, graffiti printed t-shirts and his favourite old worn leather jacket that gives him an aura of tough masculinity. He’s as easy to talk to as your best girlfriend, with an affable nature and intriguing, quiet confidence. Is Jon Pulitano the next big thing in hairdressing? Quite possibly so. By Jenny Burns

 

Fresh from Rosemount Australian Fashion Week, where he played hair director for both Redken 5th Avenue NYC and Cloud Nine, Jon Pulitano is recovering well after a gruelling eight show agenda that saw him create locks for profile designers including ksubi, Therese Rawsthorne and Konstantina Mittas. With a reputation for producing strong, contemporary hair that cuts it with both designers and the fashion crowd, his work is also incredibly versatile and skilled, proving without a doubt that he is no one hit wonder. Jon’s profile is growing internationally as well, and returning recently from the global fashion week circuit where he is a trusted member of Guido Palau’s session team, he seems to be playing his cards right from all angles.

It’s probably within the past couple of years that Jon Pulitano has really been catapulted into the limelight, but he’s certainly not an overnight success. He has been hairdressing for almost two decades, and his Paddington salon Headcase Hair, which he co-owns with business partner Vincent Nobilo, has been in operation for 13 years. But things are looking good for Jon right now and it seems as though his years of passion and toil are finally paying off.

Following years waving the flag as a brand ambassador for ghd and a member of its coveted Directive Artistic team, Jon jumped ship a few months back to be the Stylist Ambassador at Cloud Nine, the revolutionary new iron that’s taking the market by storm. It was a move amidst a sea of controversy that saw him reunited with close friend and Cloud Nine director Leonie Whatling, who along with husband Greg were the passionate advocates of ghd when it first debuted in Australia. The Whatlings’ departure from ghd last year was less than amicable, and after a much-needed hiatus, Leonie emerged at the helm of Cloud Nine at the start of 2010, welcomed back by many disgruntled hairdressers with open arms. Naturally, reuniting with Jon was high up on the Cloud Nine wish list – and why wouldn’t it be? Jon is one of the few stylists in the industry that can swing both ways, being an excellent editorial stylist as well as a successful salon owner. But more about that later.

Fashion has always been a passion of Jon’s. Even as a teenager his look was decidedly edgier than his friends, but for him it was more about image than wanting to be a designer. Whilst flicking through the newspaper on the floor of his parents’ Sydney home one day, he spotted an ad for an apprentice hairdresser. Being somewhat related to fashion and with ideals of satiating his own creative urges, Jon decided there and then that hairdressing was the career for him.

He started his apprenticeship at a salon called Chatterbox in Oxford Street. As with many inner city salons, it was a melting pot for hairdressers from overseas, especially London and Ireland. As a result, the minute Jon completed his training he moved to London to further his career at the tender age of 19.

“I didn’t really think it was a big deal going away so young,” Jon says, “because at the salon we always had people from the UK working with us or some of our staff going over there. I was pretty independent and always a leader more than a follower. It just seemed like a natural thing to do.”

Jon worked at a few different salons, dabbled in some editorial jobs and even tried his hand at modeling. Four years on, he returned to Sydney full of ideas, but found it difficult to secure employment in an environment that would allow him to explore his dreams. This prompted him to set up his own shop, so with the help of his parents he signed a three-year lease and opened a small salon in Randwick.

But Jon had bigger plans than the suburban Randwick salon. He saw it as a stepping-stone that would lead him to the next stage in his career as a salon owner – bigger and better premises in the prime retail strip of Sydney’s Oxford Street. Three years and four months to the day, Headcase Hair opened in Paddington. The edgy inner city strip was exactly the place he wanted to be and where he saw his business being established long term. And his intuition must have been right, because the salon took off.

“I wanted to get back into the editorial scene and assist people on fashion shows,” explains Jon. “I was doing the odd bit, never leaving it totally, but I took a little bit of time out from that world whilst I got on my feet at Randwick. Once I moved to Paddington I started assisting people like Sharon Maher and slowly began to move back into the fashion picture.

“It was really important for me to have a balance. I wanted to be known for producing really great editorial work, but also let people know that we did amazing cutting and beautiful colour work at the salon. We are strong from both angles, cutting and colouring, underpinned by that kind of editorial, fashion background. It’s technical and creative.

“But the most important thing, whether you’re technical or not, is that whatever you do, you have to feel. If you don’t feel, you’re only going to give 100% technical. What you do can be correct, but it has no life. It’s all mechanical, all robotic. If you’ve got that in you, then you’re lucky, because that’s really hard to get if it’s not instinctive. It’s like a designer; if they just learn the technical side but don’t have the feel, the garment wouldn’t come alive on the catwalk.

“I think I have it in me, that feeling. You can’t really learn it. I relate feel to passion and if you’re a passionate person, then the feel will come naturally. It’s not about following a design or haircut to the nth degree, but making mistakes and experimenting and learning along the way. This is how you make it your own.”

When it comes to making his own statement, Australian Fashion Week is where Jon really shines. He directed hair for a bevy of designers, including friends Konstantina Mittas, Friedrich Gray and Therese Rawsthorne as he has in previous years, plus joined the teams of other high profile brands including Camilla & Marc and ksubi, the latter which was styled by influential fashionista Brana Wolf, the preferred stylist for Versace and Dolce Gabbana.

“The gigs at RAFW come from a variety of sources,” Jon explains. “Konstantina, Therese and Friedrich are my contacts and I have long-standing relationships with each of them. I started working with Camilla & Marc through the salon because Camilla became a client and she said that she’d really like me to work on the show. Flannel and Seventh Wonderland came through Rae Begley, who is the PR agent for Friedrich and Therese. And ksubi came through a designer friend who I hooked up with a few years back when I was with ghd, Rebecca Dawson. She’s now designing for ksubi, so that’s where that came from. ksubi is relaunching with a fresh new look and they were searching for someone new to collaborate with on the hair front, so they approached me. It was a great show to do and a real honour to close the week.”

Jon certainly had plenty of experience to draw on when it came to RAFW, having returned just weeks before from the European runway circuit where he worked on dozens of shows with session supremo Guido Palau. It’s Jon’s fifth season with Guido and, he believes, his best one yet. He even got the opportunity to assist the maestro himself at several three-day hair trials and tests, including one for Muiccia Prada herself.

“This is the fifth season I’ve worked on Guido’s team,” Jon smiles, “and I keep getting asked back, so I must be doing something right. This time I got asked to do six tests with Guido, which was pretty amazing for me and a long way from just passing up like at the beginning.

“The hair at Prada this season was quite full on, with a big egg-shape at the back. Before we started the show, Guido lined us all up, there’s about 30 in total on the hair team, and said: ‘If you think you can do this, then do it, but this is not training night. If you can’t do it, put your hand up now because there are plenty of us who can.’ I wanted to style on my own and I thought I could, but all of a sudden I was a bit scared. I started thinking that maybe I should put my hand up and let someone else do it, play it safe and pass up pins. But then I thought to myself, you know what? I’m going to give it a go.’ So a model walked in front of my station and sat down and I started brushing her hair out. I could feel one of Guido’s main guys circling around me, but I wouldn’t let him in. Next, Guido looked at me and said: ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ And for a moment I thought, oh shit, but I looked back at him and said: ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

“I was about three-quarters of the way through the look and I could feel Guido come up behind me. It was my OMG moment. Then he said: ‘Great shape, Jon.’

“I breathed a huge sigh of relief. It was the most amazing thing. No matter how hectic he is, Guido always keeps a check of what’s going on and holds the team together. But what happened next was even better. The final two girls in the show were about to get started and Guido said to the hairstylists who were starting to prep them: ‘No, no, I don’t want you two doing this.’ And he starts screaming my name out: ‘Jon, Jon, I want you to do these models.’ It was a great moment, but I was also thinking, Oh no, now they’ll all hate me!

Jon has come a long way on the international circuit in comparison to his initial season, which he says was worse than the first day of school. On the homefront he’d just joined the ghd Directive, a move that not only propelled his career and personal profile into the spotlight, but also allowed him to follow his passion for fashion and session hair even more closely. At the same time, he just got his first Guido gig.

“Making the Directive was great for me, but I think I was headed in that direction anyway,” Jon ponders. “It was a really good vehicle to get myself out there, but it was also a very good vehicle to bring what I had to offer to somebody as well.

“I’d always loved Guido’s work, so I had been actively pursuing avenues to get on his team for a while. His style really appeals to me, the fact that there’s a lot of technique involved in that old school of classic hairdressing. When I look at my own work, I can see that I’m drawn to the same vibe.

“I sent my book to Guido’s agents and after a while, I was invited to assist on a few shows in New York, but it was really tough, those early days. I remember walking into the first show preparation area and only a few people spoke to me. It’s pretty hectic backstage at these shows; you just get on with your work as quickly as you can. You have to follow the beat, because if you don’t, you won’t get invited back again. I’ve never been screamed at so far, but I’ve seen others who have. Guido’s a very typical director and very Italian too.

“Somehow I managed to survive that first season and when it came time to go back the following year, I immediately got nervous. Nothing is set in stone in the first few years, you don’t really know how many shows you’re going to get. You just have to get yourself there, be it New York or Europe, and wait. You could have just two shows or you might have the entire runway circuit of Milan and Paris. I saw some hairdressers in Paris who were there for the first time. When they landed they paid for their accommodation, then found out they only got one show. Unfortunately that’s how it goes. I looked at them and thought, ‘well I’ve been there, and if this is really what you want to do, you have to find a way to manage it’.”

For Jon, working on the European designer shows is surreal. The grand scale is enormous, from the budgets to the venues, the celebrity guests and the intricacies of the garments. He feels privileged to have experienced many memorable moments.

“One time we were doing a test for Louis Vuitton with huge Afro hair,” he recalls. “It took us two full days and nights to prep these wigs – there were 60 of them in total and we had to sew five wigs together just to make one. Makeup artist Pat McGrath was doing the trial as well, and her assistants were there with all of these large trunks. Suddenly, she opens them up and they are full of the most amazing books. Every single hair or makeup reference you could ever imagine is stored within these enormous trunks, and she apparently carries them with her everywhere around the world. They were like portable bookshelves full of the latest and hottest coffee table books. Can you imagine how heavy these would be? Talk about excess luggage. But this is the scale that these shows are on, complete extravagance. Another time we needed 60 wigs for a Lanvin show that was to start in 24 hours, and Guido didn’t like any of the wigs sourced locally, so they were Fed Exed from the other side of the world on the same day. The budgets are huge, everything is on a much larger scale than we are used to here.”

Jon even admits to getting a little starstruck at times, especially the time he was less than a metre away from his absolute idol.

“Everyone who knows me is aware I’m completely obsessed with Madonna, have been forever,” he enthuses. “In September last year I was working at Marc Jacobs. On the circuit there are certain shows that you know you can sneak into once your work is done so you can see the results on the runway, and Marc’s was definitely one of the ones we wanted to see. I said to one of the girls on the team: ‘Where’s Madge, where is she? She should be here.’ The girl had no idea what I was talking about; I think she thought I was a bit weird. I repeated: ‘I said, Madonna, she should be here. She’s doing all the ads for Louis Vuitton and designing with Marc Jacobs, of course she’ll be here!’ After the show we went backstage to check out Lady Gaga and I turned around and looked at this woman, thinking, she’s got a familiar face. I turned back and then it hit me – oh my God, I was standing right next to Madonna! I couldn’t believe how tiny she was, but she looked amazing. She was there with her young boyfriend. That for me was the highlight of the season! But honestly, that’s what it’s like over there, celebrities and supermodels and media out of this world. One minute there’s Jennifer Lopez, next Winona Ryder, Janet Jackson, then Lady Gaga and Madonna, all backstage just hanging out. It’s quite surreal.”

Back in the land of the living, Jon is preparing for some media gigs and education dates for his role as Cloud Nine Stylist Ambassador.

“Moving to Cloud Nine was a big step, having been an ambassador for ghd for such a long time, and it took me a long time to get the strength up to break the news that I was leaving. But the way I look at it, my time at ghd was a win/win situation – they were good for me and I was good for them. It was great and it will never be anything other than that from my perspective. My move was a professional decision to enable me to use a tool with the ultimate technology that gave superior results. I believe that Cloud Nine produces the results that consumers want. It was as simple as that.”

When he’s not travelling the world doing runway hair and trying to track down Madonna’s latest hangout, Jon says exercising and meditation are his two latest passions.

“I find I need meditation,” he says, “not just to switch off, but to fine-tune my creativity in a sense. When you clear your mind, that’s when you can work with the stuff that’s beneath the surface. I think this fashion week circuit has been my best season creatively and I’ve been working a lot with meditation, so I think that has helped a lot.”

And what’s happening on the relationship front – does Jon have someone special in his life or is he a free agent?

“I’m single,” he says. “But I think that might be what I’ll work on next, a love interest, now that I’ve got the work thing sorted. I like someone who is strong and a leader and someone who has their own mind. That’s what I like about Madonna, her ability to be such a leader. She’s a great example of reinvention – being comfortable in her own style, but still being incredibly cool.

“I think life is about pushing the boundaries and not always conforming. It’s about taking a left turn instead of a right and not being afraid of making mistakes. This is how we learn. It’s about saying: ‘Look what I discovered when I took that left turn – if I hadn’t of gone down that path, I would never have seen it.’”

Quite prophetic words, don’t you think? Does Jon think he’ll be the next big thing in the hairdressing scene?

“I could be,” he muses. “I’d like to be the person that people look at and say: ‘you know, his stuff is always a little bit different. He’s always innovative and an amazing teacher, and he shares what he knows.’

“I think in hairdressing there’s the editorial people who get out there and do their thing, then there are the industry people who do their thing. But there’s not very many in between who can successfully crossover both. I’d like to think there’s a place for me in that middle ground.

“That’s the main thing I loved about working with Sharon Maher all those years ago. She did both, editorial and industry – and she shared everything. She’d say: ‘If I can enlighten you, even just for a minute, then I’ve done my job.’

“That works for me. You can’t do much better than that.”