Guido Palau

Guido Palau was born in Dorset, the fourth of four boys and spent his teenage years in Bournemouth. After a mediocre school career he went travelling and on his return trained as a hairdresser, initially with Vidal Sassoon which had a salon in Bournemouth. "One day I filled the appointment sheet with famous names, like Barbra Streisand," says Palau in a 1994 Vogue article. "Just for fun. I got found out and was sacked. They told me I'd never make it as a hairdresser." This setback caused him to re-evaluate his career, and take his occupation more seriously. After working in numerous hair salons, he decided that his passion was session hair styling for photographic shoots and fashion shows. ==Career==

An early turning point in Guido's career was when he styled George Michael's Freedom! '90 music video, which featured supermodels, including Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Tatjana Patitz, and Cindy Crawford. In the early '90s, just as the supermodel era was ending and the grunge moment was about to take hold, Guido began working with photographer David Sims, who had been taking documentary style photos of street-cast subjects. Once these images started appearing in the pages of The Face, they grabbed the attention of designer Calvin Klein, who drafted Guido and Sims to transfer the ratty, anti-fashion hairstyles of London's plaid-shirt-wearing malcontents to the heads of James King and Kate Moss. He was then asked by Calvin Klein to work on the designer's pivotal fall 1994 fashion show. Today, Guido is described by British Vogue as "The World's most in-demand hair stylist." He regularly collaborates with fashion photographer Steven Meisel and continues to work closely with David Sims. His work is featured regularly in Italian, French, British and American Vogue, Love, V, and W Magazine. Each season, he creates the hair look for more than 30 fashion shows, and according to a 2010 Allure article, has become one of the busiest runway stylists in the business – and the driving force behind many of the major trends. His first book, Heads: Hair by Guido, was published in 2000 and features a decade of his signature work. In 2005, Guido was signed with Redken as their creative consultant. == References == • Videos of Guido Palau Backstage, exclusive fashion week interviews on MODTV