Splitting Hairs : Fashion: Young executives stick to the corporate coif from 9 to 5. But after work, they shed the cut-and-dry look for long, loose, even slippery-looking locks.
By day they live the corporate image in cloned coifs--dry, conservative, out-of-my-face hairstyles.
But come nightfall these young boardroom hopefuls go bohemian. Some literally let their hair down. Others, armed with mousse, gels, sprays and spritzes, don Bart Simpson spikes.
So go the restrictive days and rebellious nights of junior executives who disguise their hair-splitting souls from 9 to 5 but get wild and woolly near dark.
“I feel like Bruce Wayne during the day and Batman at night,” admits Scott Kilburn. The 28-year-old McDonnell Douglas aerospace engineer works in a conservative office and must maintain a cool, clean, close-to-the-scalp look. His hair is regularly clipped short on top, around his ears and on the sides in a style created by Dina Yanee Chaiprasert, owner of Vous Salon on Melrose Avenue.
But it’s Kilburn’s hair behind the ears, which falls to the middle of his back, that he hides from his boss and co-workers by tying it in a ponytail and stuffing it underneath his starched, button-down shirt all day long.
After work, while driving to his Los Feliz home, Kilburn liberates his long locks. He shakes them free. He’s in hair heaven until the next day, when his ponytail goes undercover.
“Because I work in a large corporate office, it’s necessary that I fit in with the corporate image,” he says. “The way I’m wearing my hair now, it looks office-like and corporate. I figure if no one sees my long hair in the back, how can they complain about it.”
Co-workers who have known Kilburn for the past year are curious, especially women.
“But I’ve never, ever shown them,” he says. “I don’t talk about it. I want to be known for the work I do, not for my hair.”
If he did uncover his long hair, fellow workers might be startled. They’d not only learn about the extravagant length of his hair, but they’d see that Kilburn, a natural blond, dyes his hair black--except for the tail. That’s still blond.
“My mom-in-law dyes my hair,” he says.
Before joining McDonnell Douglas, Kilburn had a mohawk. He also worked as a photographer, shooting rock bands such as the Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Love & Rockets for underground magazines. Pre-mohawk, he was a Vidal Sassoon hair color model, “which was how I got my hair cut while I was working my way through college.”
But after earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace engineering from USC, Kilburn says, “it was time for me to get kind of conservative.” But he remains a nonconformist. Kilburn, his wife and Chaiprasert cannot bring themselves to part with the ponytail. “It would be like cutting off an arm or a leg,” Kilburn says.
Ruben B. Martinez, 32, an Immigration and Naturalization Service deportation officer for three years, works in “a very conservative environment”--the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles.
Martinez, who carries a gun under the Hugo Boss and Giorgio Armani suits he finds on sales racks, prefers to keep his hair short and dry, his face polished and cleanshaven: “I do it for my job. I deal with lawyers, judges and other law enforcement officers.”
His hairstylist, Roberto Rangel of Today’s Look at the downtown Los Angeles Mall, is his image maker. Rangel says Martinez is not alone.
“The majority of the younger guys who come in here want a conservative look because they have very serious jobs at City Hall, the Police Department and with law firms. But they also want a look that is totally different for weekends.” Rangel and other stylists readily oblige their clients, often teaching men how to sculpt, scrunch and spritz hair.
Martinez, the father of three children, ages 2, 6 and 9, says he does an about-face on weekends. He mousses. He gels. He turns into Helmet Head.
“On Saturdays and Sundays I get tired of blow-drying my hair. I get out of the shower and slap some gel onto my hair, get into weekend clothes and I’m outta here,” he says. “I don’t want to feel like I’m going to work. I do it to break the monotony, to make my own statement.”
Martinez says he probably will never gel, mousse or spike his hair for work because “first impressions are important. People notice the way you look. If you look clean, corporate and conservative, you are taken seriously.”
He leans toward classically cut suits and white shirts. “I don’t follow any trends,” he says. “I never did the pierced ear thing. But I admit that on weekends it’s sheen and shine time for my hair.”
Monday through Friday, Michael Carapella is the office services supervisor for Hughes Hubbard & Reed, a downtown Los Angeles law firm. But on weekends, Carapella rocks and rolls. The 25-year-old is a guitarist and background singer for Glass House. And his hairstyle isn’t exactly a boot camp cut.
How does he manage Big Hair in the office?
“I keep it neat at work. I keep it very neat. This is a conservative firm, but my bosses never really say anything to me about my hair,” Carapella says about the long hair he’s had for seven years.
He meets regularly with Rangel to talk hair. The two have decided to keep Carapella’s style long on top, snipped about half an inch above his eyebrows, cut midway to his ears, and in the back, a few inches below the shoulders.
“It doesn’t look unbalanced. It blends in all around,” says Rangel. “And the way Michael wears it to work, it looks neat and clean.”
At work, Carapella handles personnel matters and attorneys’ schedules. He says he tries to make his hair look shorter than it actually is because of the law firm environment. He accomplishes that goal “by blow-drying it straight and not allowing it to fall forward over my shoulders. And I don’t put anything on it. I just let it stay dry” and out of his face.
But come gig time, Carapella’s head of dark brown hair reaches MTV proportions on the stage at FM Station, the Music Machine, the Palomino and Madame Wong’s West, where Glass House will perform Sept. 7.
“I use a lot of hair spray, mousse, gel, whatever is handy to make it look big and long and make it stand up and stand out more,” he says. “When I’m at work, I want my hair to look as professional as I can, but when I’m out at night or when I play with the band I want to look like I’m in a band, like this is my full-time job, not like I just got out of work.”
