FASHION : Technology Lets Women Try On New Hair Styles : Computers Can Help the Customer Find a Coiffure That Will Work
We are about to solve a classic grooming dilemma.
Our subject is how to avoid Hair Alert, which occurs when a woman for reasons known only to herself decides to remake her image.
This is generally done with a new hair color, a new hair shape or both, and when implemented can quickly trigger the ritual behaviors of Hair Alert Syndrome. These are: tipping the stylist lavishly before exiting the salon, then becoming hysterical for up to four hours.
A few years back, we had a co-worker who, at about the age of 40, suffered a Hair Alert, or at least we were strongly alerted by it. She never actually admitted it had occurred.
A woman with striking blond hair and a great natural wave that showed off her strong profile, she suddenly turned up one morning looking amazingly like Little Orphan Annie, having given in to a stylist’s recommendation for a popular, furry ‘do. For weeks she braved it out, and then, wanting to start over, got about 95% of her hair cut off.
This situation is more common than most of us like to think and can lead to spending large sums on restorative processes or, alternately, resignation from the human race.
But, such trauma is needless in the computer age. Technology allows a woman to test a new look without committing her hair to it.
Or, as the promotional videotape at Visual Images, a store in the Buenaventura Mall, says: “Explore your fantasy at no risk!”
In this setting, those suffering hair disenchantment can work with catalogues of almost 500 hairstyles to match coiffures to their faces to see what might happen in a salon chair.
“It’s sort of the way they make cartoons, almost,” said Jack Mathis, a partner in L. A. Logic, the Oxnard computer-imaging company that operates Visual Images. “We use a video camera that has a computer input instead of having film. We take the person’s image, and that goes into the computer and comes up on our screen.
“In the computer there are stored digital images of hairstyles (that are) overlaid on the person’s head.”
Thus, the alternative hair styles are superimposed on the person, and each of those “tryouts” is stored on videotape.
At the store, manager Dolores Youtz and assistant Tracey Hoover said the typical customer is a woman between 20 and 40. The atypical customer is a man of any age or a woman over 50.
For the most part, such a woman “has already figured out the style she’s going to wear for the rest of her life,” says Youtz, who confided, “My mother, if she was in a mall, would not stop and do this.”
Both sexes and all ages are represented in the extensive catalogues of styles: rock ‘n’ roller looks, featuring shoulder-wide explosions of hair; retro styles reviving the pixie and the beehive; dreadlocks, flips, poufs and Mohawks, as well as conservative cuts of every description.
The idea is that a customer will take her video ($24.95 for 24 styles, $19.95 for 12) to a stylist and point out exactly what she has in mind, thus forever eliminating the risks of Hair Alert. Some salons have a VCR available for this service. Others do not, and for these, individual prints of the customer’s favorite choices are available.
On a recent afternoon, in search of the ideal look for her hair, Swiss tourist Iervasi Assunta and her husband of three weeks, Armando, stopped at the store. They had a list of 24 style numbers that Iervasi had chosen from the books.
Iervasi speaks only French, but American-born Armando stated confidently: “She wants to cut her hair, and she has chosen these styles so I can pick out what I like. If I (still) don’t want her to cut her hair, she won’t.”
His bride, who has over-the-shoulder brown hair, gave the list of choices to Youtz. Iervasi stepped up to the camera and Youtz made adjustments, attempting to get an acceptable image.
Iervasi broke into giggles as she saw her face combined with fluffy auburn locks, then long blond ones, a silver bob, a dark poodle cut.
“I just want to look really pretty,” she said.
“You always look beautiful,” her husband replied in French.
Twenty-four looks scrolled across the screen, but Iervasi was undecided, torn between two or three soft, shorter cuts.
They purchased the video and prepared to leave. But Iervasi suddenly fixed upon her husband with a direct gaze. Smiling, she insisted, “I will still cut my hair!”
At least the video will spare the wearer, if not the observer, a Hair Alert.
Kathleen Williams writes the weekly fashion column for Ventura County Life. Write to her at 5200 Valentine Road, Suite 140, Ventura 93003 or send faxes to 658-5576.
