Name an it girl of our era and chances are Evanie Frausto has done their hair – floor-grazing extensions for Julia Fox, a sabre-like braid for Rosalía, a 1960s side parting for Lana Del Rey, and lots and lots of styles for Bella Hadid.
Frausto’s allegiance with the most zeitgeist-y faces is down to the fact that he is unabashedly, undeniably cool with an aesthetic that speaks to our time’s preference for things a little bit grunge, a little bit Y2K, and all playful.
Hair by Evanie Frausto
Yet, while Frausto is one of the industry’s fastest-rising stars, his path was hardly a straight ascent. ‘Growing up in the United States, [higher] education was just so expensive,’ Frausto tells me over the phone from Los Angeles. ‘In high school, I was working as a receptionist at a hair salon and it made me think – here’s a way I can make some quick cash without having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on school.’
So Frausto enrolled in beauty school and while there took a fateful class trip to New York. ‘I just decided to stay on a whim,’ he says. ‘I was taken in by a house of drag queens in Williamsburg, one of whom was a make-up artist and I wasn’t a make-up artist, but I begged him to take me on set.
‘That was how I met Cesar Ramirez, who became the first stylist I ever assisted. Then I just started meeting new people and opportunities started arising.’
Speaking to Frausto is a reminder that sometimes fostering a curious mind and collaborative spirit can be the most effective way to succeed. ‘I go into every project with an open mind,’ he says. ‘I try to find beauty in everything, which leaves me open to so many ideas about what is beautiful.
‘So if there’s a look that I’m aiming to achieve and it doesn’t end up happening, I always just try to lean into it and then it naturally steers itself into a good direction.’
When asked what advice he would give to his younger self, he says: ‘I grew up in California, a first generation Mexican, so I think I'd go back and just tell my younger self to be patient like, you know, you'll find community, then you find other like-minded people that you can relate to.’
Indeed, one of the people Frausto has found himself relating to is Nan Goldin. ‘When I was an assistant, Jimmy Paul, who I was assisting at the time, sent me to cut her hair and we ended up just cutting all her hair off, giving her a version of a kind of curly mullet. That was five years ago, and now I see her about every two weeks.’
