Guido Palau was sacked from his first job at Vidal Sassoon Bournemouth in the 1980s. He had taken to filling out the appointment diary with names of celebrities like ‘Barbra Streisand’ and, upon discovering this, the managers promptly let him go, stating he would never make it as a hairdresser. Of course, that was a false prophecy, as Palau went on to become not only one of the most influential hair stylists of our time but also one of the most powerful forces in the fashion industry at large (a list he was added to by the British Fashion Council in 2009 alongside names like John Galliano and Nick Knight).
Never losing that rebellious streak, Guido’s unconventional creativity propelled the grunge era of the 1990s, shaped the spectacular runways of Alexander McQueen, and gave rise to some of fashion’s most famous images alongside legends like Steven Meisel and David Sims. Styling a staggering 30 fashion shows each season, he continues to define beauty today, inventing everything from bird-of-paradise bowl cuts for Loewe to the manically frizzed fringes that went viral on Miu Miu’s runway last year. He also masterminded Zara’s haircare launch earlier in 2024. Incredibly, amongst all this, he’s had time to work on a personal project over the past 12 months – a fun, sensual photo book made with friend and model Kaia Gerber, exploring the power of secret identities.
Guido Palau talks Hidden Identities, his project with model Kaia Gerber and IDEA Books
Launching this weekend (4 May) with IDEA Books in New York, it marks a follow-up to his 2021 publication #HAIRTESTS, which gathered iPhone headshots of bold looks Palau created on street-cast models. (It sold out in one day and copies now go for $650 on eBay.) ‘I hope people like it,’ Palau says of the new project, sceptical despite the success of the last, over the phone from New York. ‘As soon as it's in print and people see it, and people are paying for it, you do feel a bit exposed and vulnerable.’
Like #HAIRTESTS, this book was shot by Palau and his assistants, DIY-style on an iPhone. It sees a chameleonic Gerber step into several identities, guided by ‘subversive, characterful and odd’ wigs the artist has collected over the years, picking them up in places like Paris and Italy. One moment the model takes on a cheeky mood in big country and western hair; while in another, she taps into a sultry feeling in shiny blue tresses reminiscent of a 2000s pop star. ‘Some of the pictures are quite provocative,’ Palau says. ‘I don’t think she’s seen like that very often, which is quite interesting. I think she was interested in these images representing a different side of her in general. Something that’s in her, but a side she hasn’t really let out.’
Palau has known Gerber since she was a teenager, first styling her hair for Italian Vogue with Steven Meisel when she was just 13. He first met her mum, Cindy Crawford, on a breakthrough job styling George Michael’s supermodel-strewn Freedom ’90 video. ‘We’ve built up a separate friendship to Cindy,’ he says of Gerber, who has carved her own stratospheric status as a model – though recently the 22-year-old has been channelling her energy into acting, appearing in the new show Palm Royale, which debuted on Apple TV+ last month. ‘She’s someone that I’ve worked with for nearly ten years now, all the way through her modelling career. We have a great relationship and we’ve done some amazing hair moments together.’
After finding time in their busy schedules, the pair spent a day near the end of 2022 messing around with the wigs and videoing Gerber in them. Screenshots of the playful footage were blown up using an app on Palau’s phone, accidentally taking on a pixelated VHS effect that the duo liked for its ‘raw, punkish’ feeling, and decided to keep. ‘She was very much part of the editing process,’ he says of the model. ‘She has strong opinions. The whole project was about her creative side as well.’
Adding to the intimate, collaborative spirit of the book, they enlisted Fabien Baron and his daughter Eva, who is the same age as Kaia, to work on the art direction and text respectively. In big bolshy red lettering, Eva’s words resemble the fluid interior thoughts of a woman throughout the day, exclaiming things such as: ‘A girl brushes her hair only to mess it up, only to prove how seamlessly one thing can become another.’
‘I didn’t want it to feel like a book in a formal way,’ Palau explains. ‘It’s almost like a flick book of ideas about how hair can change somebody’s identity, how the way we feel is so wrapped up in our hair a lot of the time. Not just Kaia, but what real women, real people, experience when they radically cut or dye their hair. They become more confident, or they’re suddenly able to act in a certain way. That’s what I love about the power of hair: it changes how you feel about yourself. I think that’s very interesting.’
A flurry of technicolour locks and evocative moods, the finished product is not only a document of the hairstylist’s boundless invention but a portrait of a young woman exploring the multiplicity of herself. ‘The fun thing about the time I grew up in, the 1970s and 1980s, was there was such a movement of going out at night, really dressing up and putting on a persona,’ says Palau at the end of our call, when I ask what we can learn from unleashing the secret identities hidden within us. ‘I remember going into nightclubs back then, and you’d never really know who that person was in the corner. It was just like a persona that they gave off. I might never have met them, but they‘re etched in my memory. I think by changing your persona, by putting a wig on [or] whatever it is, you unleash a new you. That’s what I love about identity and hair – how empowering it can be to discover yourself.‘
Hidden Identities by Guido Palau and Kaia Gerber is available now, published by IDEA Books.
A launch event and signing at takes place today, Saturday 4 May, 2024, at Dover Street Market New York between 5pm-7pm.
