Holiday Childress

Full interview below...

Interview with Adorn Stylist Holiday Childress
Interview by Kimala Luna

It was early and surprisingly warm for January when I sat down to interview Holiday Childress on the benches near the Vance monument. Holiday Childress has been working at Adorn for almost two years. In his words, “It’s been wonderful.” We sat down to talk a little bit about his experience being a stylist.


Childress:
I can’t believe that I’m a hairdresser because I never grew up thinking about hair, I always grew up thinking about music. And as a performer and songwriter and a musician, after having a couple of kids, I discovered I needed a day job. I have been in the service business for a long time, anyway, so it seemed like a good place to start doing something. It was either nursing, or hair, or massage therapy - Hair was the choice. I realized I really like it. I originally wanted to open a barber shop. And just have a jukebox, and a pool table, and some beers on tap and just cut guys hair all day long, and maybe even learn how to do that straight-razor shaving. But when I was in hair school, and then in my apprenticeship, I learned how to do color. And after I started doing color, I realized I like color more than I thought and it’s turned into one of my main things.
I love doing color and the way that it influences the cut. Color is kind of musical to me. [...]a lot of times, I like to use three tones - a low-light, a mid-light, and a high-light and combine them together like a harmony that kind of goes together. So I’m always thinking in terms of balance, and harmony, and music, but now I get to do it visually. And Adorn is an awesome place to do that because it feels kind of like a barber shop in there, but it’s a beauty salon at the same time so I still get to feel like a man while I am putting color in women’s hair and cutting men’s hair.

Childress describes how he came to work at Adorn....

Childress: There was an ad in the paper that said, “Adorn is seeking a stylist: humble rockstars need only apply.” And I read that and thought to myself, “I fit that description.” So, I gave Rebecca a call and she had me come in. I did a color and a cut on a curly haired model and she thought it was good enough to be adorn and so then I started about a week or two later.

Childress explains his knack for different hair textures and how he creates styles for his clients...

Childress: I happen to do a lot of blonde hair and fine, blonde hair. I have a lot of fine, blonde, hair clients who are really happy because I have fine hair and it’s kind of dirty blonde and maybe that’s it. You know? If someone has curly hair then they’d [probably] be good with curly hair folks, so I tend to have some happy fine, blonde hair clients. But I’ve learned how to cut a lot of curly hair because I have had a lot of people close to me in my life that have had curly hair that I’ve worked on, as well. The psychology of who someone is, I think, is the most important thing. I really like talking to people and kind of getting a sense of who they are so I can give them a look that suits the person that they are. You can tell a lot from the way people - their body language - how they touch their hair. If they don’t know how to describe what they want they just go (reaches his hands up and fusses with imaginary hair), “Well...uh..it kind of..uh.” (Fusses a little more with imaginary hair and then stops). And I can tell exactly [what they mean] by looking [at their hair] and by looking at their body language and kind of finding out what they do for a living and who they are in the world. I kind of feel my way around their intuition. The client’s intuition is always the best thing to go by. Because if you follow their intuition most of the time, almost all of the time, you come out with a happy client. And if I don’t think something is going to look good on somebody, I might give them [something] in that direction, but not totally. I don’t know, I like to take baby-steps sometimes. Unless someone totally wants something drastic...but now I’m just starting to babble (laughs).

Childress talks Davines...

Childress: We have some really killer products. It’s an Italian company called Davines. I first started using a lot of Bumble & Bumble products and I really liked those and I was sad to leave the Bumble & Bumble line because I knew it and it worked really well. But then when I starting using the Davines products, it was a little confusing because things got lost in translation, as far as the products they are numbered - 1,2,3,4,5 and they have different lines and with the Italian translation to English it’s kind of hard to understand, but once you do, they’re fantastic. They work really well, they look beautiful, and they smell amazing. And it says, “For Wizards.” So a lot of times I joke with people, I say, “I don’t know if you’re going to be able to use this product or not because it’s for wizards.” and they’ll laugh and then I’ll show them and it actually says, “For Wizards.” I don’t know where that comes from or why it’s for wizards, but I feel like a wizard when I use Davines styling products (laughs).