Charlie Scissorhands

Being conceived to cover baldness, wigs and hairpieces traditionally conjure up negative connotations.

Yet exuberant hairstylist and wigmaker Charlie Le Mindu has been working hard to change people’s perceptions and preconceptions.

Born in Bergerac in 1987, Le Mindu, trained at Vidal Sassoon and Toni & Guy and cut hair at pop up salons in German clubs.

After moving to London he opened his studio in Shoreditch where he creates unique hairpieces.

Conceiving wigs as the perfect accessories employed to create a new ebullient personality or radically transform oneself, Le Mindu launched last February during London Fashion Week his first collection, comprising 14 pieces.

A triumph of natural hair sewn onto gigantic metal frames and then cut, decorated with Swarovski crystals, mounted animals and papier-mâché elements, Le Mindu’s exotic, extreme and extravagant pieces won him the support of many celebrities, among them also Lady Gaga, Peaches, the B-52s, Florence and the Machine and even Veruschka.

Le Mindu’s new collection, inspired by dark and gothic atmospheres and religious cults, features long black wigs decorated with gigantic crosses covered in crystals, inky black roses and sparkling Fabergé eggs, and it’s dedicated to people who can pull off the most outrageous visual fantasies.

What follows is an extract from an interview with Charlie Le Mindu I did for the next issue of Zoot Magazine (Spring/Summer 2010 - out soon).

In the interview Le Mindu mentions the fact that he would like to collaborate with a horror or children’s film director one day.

In the meantime his pieces have appeared in a short film entitled "Woman Walking" by Konstantinos Menelaou and Marlon Rueberg (see video embedded at the end of this post).

The Menelaou & Rueberg duo mainly focuses on art direction, styling, film and post-production and created projects for different artists and designers including Ilya Fleet and Maaike Mekking.

Menelaou and Rueberg often shoot their work on super8 which contributes to give their projects a sort of eerie and dreamy quality about them.

In the case of "Woman Walking" the final effect is even more visionary and disturbing than usual thanks to the location chosen for the short, a graveyard, and to the scantily dressed models moving around the tombs wearing Le Mindu's bizarre creations while sinister tracks can be heard playing in the background.  

Your new collection has got a sort of religious cult theme behind it, what inspired it?
This collection is darker than the previous one and through it I wanted to show the flip side of religion and how all religions have got something fetishistic about them.  

In your opinion, what’s the most extraordinary creation you ever designed?
I like all my designs so far, as they are all different, but what I really like is working with fur and dead animals, though I usually employ only vintage furs.

According to you, which singer/actress/celebrity has got the most amazing hairstyle?
I love Cher, but Caroline Martial’s from Kap Bambino is quite powerful too.

Which is the most elaborate piece you created so far?
I think it was a piece for my first collection and it was a big skull head incorporating a massive cape made with black and white braids twisted and bent to create optical motifs. I remember it was extremely hard working on this piece.

Would you like to do a TV programme about hairstyling one day?
I have one on a French web TV station called Konbini, it’s a makeover show coming out soon and it’s called “Charlie’s Treatment”.
 

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