This is a second part follow up to our mention in DNAInfo.com. Q&A by lead stylist of the West Village hair salon, Seagull, Shaun SureThing and Johanna Fateman. Scroll down for the original post after the Q&A of Riot Grrrl Pioneer Fights to Keep Salon Amid Skyrocketing Rents.
DNAinfo New York sat down with Fateman and Cottle to talk about their fight to stay in the West Village despite sky-rocketing rents, how they've seen the neighborhood and the city change around them and what it means to run a feminist hair salon.
Talk about your commitment to staying in the neighborhood.
JF: It’s sort of ridiculous to talk about gentrification in this neighborhood anymore because it’s, like, the most expensive neighborhood in the city. But there’s this strange paradox where local independently owned businesses are why people want to live in the West Village, because there is McNulty’s [Tea & Coffee] and Seagull. So we’re trying to stay here and find a business model that works, that’s true to who we are but also can work in this climate. We have to constantly kind of go back to square one and be like, how can this work? How can we preserve the legacy of Seagull and its connection to gay liberation in this neighborhood and make something that can generate enough revenue to stay here? It hasn’t always been easy.
SC: I’m so proud that we are a business that has been here since 1971. Gentrification is behind us, urban blight is happening and we’ve managed to find a weird hole and dig ourselves into it, and we’ve managed to make it a really glamorous spot.
How has the neighborhood changed around you?
JF: I feel a lot of sadness to see these ground floor spaces taken up by these huge bank lobbies and by CVS. It just seems like the square footage is exorbitant and it really affects — the way we walk through this neighborhood is different. In that sense I was sad to leave the ground floor. There was something nice about having the storefront. But at least we’re still here.
SC: The other thing that’s sad that’s happening in this neighborhood is that landlords are like, "You can’t afford it, I want $25,000 a month" and then it just sits empty. It’s like, "Oh, congratulations on the huge profit you’re making."
JF: It changed too with the outrage of people who have bought into these luxury buildings, their outrage at the queer youth populations and communities that still hang out on Christopher Street and the Christopher Street piers and still have that as kind of a citywide destination for hanging out. We’ve had some arguments with people about that.
SC: I think the neighborhood is definitely less queer or the queers here are older. But because the queers haven’t died off there's some kind of weird bohemian energy hanging in the air still. I don’t know if it’s the ghost of HIV past or if it’s just like this neighborhood was so much entrenched with that spirit that no matter who moves here it still sort of feels that way.
What does it mean to be a feminist salon?
JF: I think that the way in which it’s feminist for me and probably for Shaun, too, is in the sense that we come from like this punk feminist culture, DIY culture that’s very irreverent towards expertise. And we were like, "We can do it. No, we don’t know how to run a business but we can figure it out."
Our feminism is also about paying living wages to our employees and making a sustainable small business where we can employ people and allow them to be their selves and express themselves on the job and pursue their other creative projects and have flexible schedules.
SC: In terms of it actually being a feminist salon as far as beauty goes, one of the things I’ll often say to women if they’re like, "I have a really high forehead so I feel like I can’t do xyz," I’m like, "Okay, well, I don’t see that as a stylist but if that’s how you feel there’s ways to address that. But that’s not a concern of mine that’s jumping out at me."
JF: Also what’s wrong with having a big forehead or a fat face or a long skinny face?
SC: Yeah, we should exaggerate it. If you want to look really fabulous in New York, maybe we should do the thing of taking your flaw and exaggerating it. Let’s take your round face and make a bob at your cheekbones.
All of our stylists first and foremost are very, very, very specific about not imposing any specific style onto any one person. We really listen. Like, what do you want to present? Who are you? Do you want to be blond? People don’t take women with blond hair as seriously as women with brown hair. Do you want to be taken seriously? Do you want to be able to sneak your ideas through the office because you’re blond? Because we could do that. Pulling out of women who they want to be in the world and then trying to bring that to fruition. That, to me, is the most feminist thing that I do in the salon everyday.
Despite a tragic month and a rather turbulent 2016, we here at Seagull Salon are more committed than ever to show our love and support this year and celebrate Gay Pride. And while the world might seem too hectic at times, we still have a lot of love and good vibes in Seagull.
We were very excited for the wedding of our stylist Jeanise's parents, who got married earlier this month.
Jeanise gave her mother a very soft and lovely lavender color that was perfect for their special day.
Also, our amazing assistant Humby will be marching in the Gay Pride Parade as Mr. Gay Latino NYC! We're so proud to have him on board at our new location.
And, as I write this, Obama has just announced that The Stonewall Inn, our neighbor here in the West Village, is now not just a LGBT landmark but a national monument. We couldn't be more proud this June.
This is just west of Seventh Avenue South.
We are SUPER excited over here at in between Seagulls!!! Our new space will be fully operational by this Wednesday the 2nd of December. Some of you may already have appointments and we are looking forward to seeing you in our new space. We're sure you are going to be as blown away by it as we are. It's a total fantasy come true with beautiful custom furniture, a unique decor that will blow yer socks off! Also, we've acquired some great new art by Kathe Burkhart, Allice O'Malley and A.L Steiner as well as our old favorites Sam McKinniss and Nolan Hendrickson.
We are happy to welcome Steve Karas into our fold. Along with beautiful,natural Balayage highlights and the crazy blondes and pastels Seagull is highly regarded for Steve brings a diverse set of skills to our new biiger space. Currently his is offering blow outs at $60 which is unbeatable for the West Village. His pricing is great and his work immaculate.Specializing in cuts for both men and women Steve in a well season Stylist apprenticing and styling in The French Rivera before coming to NYC where he has worked in a couple of the most innovative salons in NYC. Pass this info on that we have an exciting new stylist in our fold. He's pals with Seagull Stylist Sarah Fenoglo. They've worked together in the past and we're pleased to have him. Steve is also the first stylist at Seagull to offer Hair Extensions! Anyone who has ever been interested will have a chance to stop by and talk about options for the long hair of dreams! Soon we will also have wigs on display as Steve is a master wig worker.
OVERTONE shampoos and conditioners will be arriving this week! For all you you Muted Mauves, Slate Grays, Smokey Blues and all the other variations that have been custom created at Seagull.... We now will have the product you need (and have been ordering directly from Overtone online) and can help you to formulate which colors to best mix and match!!! We're so excited to finally have the space to order enough to meet yer needs.
Well, that's about it for now. Please take note of our new address and call when yer ready for your end of year hair. We CANNOT WAIT to see all of you in our beautiful new space. Again we are all so happy and know you will be to.
If you haven't heard of it already, Balayage is a term that is being used more frequently in salons recently and is swiftly becoming the industry standard for certain blonde looks.
I’ve gotten a lot of questions about what the difference is between Ombre highlighting and Balayage over the last year or so and feel compelled to write this post. As a way to kind of clear the air of all the clutter and misinformation that has been tossed around in magazines, style blogs, comments sections... And a few hair stylists with a somewhat less than thoughtful choice of wording.
The first and foremost thing to understand, before moving forward, is what distinguishes Balayage and Ombre from each other.
It is simply this: Ombre (Adjective) is a look or style and Balayage (Noun/Verb) is a technique used to achieve a certain look or style (BTW neither of them have anything to do with dip dye).
Very frequently the technique of Balayage is used to create an Ombre look and this is why the topic has been such a huge source of confusion.
Many women in search of a style that is comprised of gradation from darkness to lightness in the hair or, simply, natural and realistic looking blondes have been given incorrect information and left wondering why they did not achieve the desired color they came to the salon to get.
So all that being said. Balayage is a French word that translated to english means “sweeping” or “to sweep” that originated in the 1970’s to describe a way of applying lightener or color to the hair.
Balayage highlights can start very close to the scalp (unlike Ombre) and can be placed as densely or sparsely throughout the hair as desired depending on the amount of lightness trying to be attained. Baylayage can also start further away from the scalp (typically 4-6 inches) to achieve an Ombre feel.
Because Balayage is painted or swept on to the hair, it is not as precise or *stripey* as traditional highlights utilizing foils or papers can sometimes appear to be. Though hand painted Baylayge sections of hair can be placed onto a foil to speed up a lightening process.
Now onto Ombre. The word Ombre is derived from the French present participle Ombrer which means “to shade”. Ombre the way we know it now is a signifier of a color that appears to be shaded or graduated from darker and lighter toward/at the ends.
There are about a million ways to achieve an Ombre look. From dying some of the ends, using woven foils diluted with water to the most popular method, Balayage. Ombre can be a very subtle gradation from the natural hair color to 2-3 shades lighter toward the ends or very bold with darker color applied to the root of the hair and lightener applied to the ends up to 7 shades lighter than the natural hair color.
But the important part of an Ombre look to remember is that the lightened parts of the hair are almost never meant to go any higher up than the temples. Ombre was created to look as if the sun had naturally lightened the hair and about six months have passed. This is why you see it so frequently paired with layered and lose fall clothing. Ombre is not intended to look like it’s time to get one’s roots done. A perfect Ombre look can be done once in the salon and grown out completely and never look unfinished or in need of touching up.
Balayage, though more subtle and soft than traditional foiling techniques, is intended to be maintained more frequently, usually between 3 and 6 months depending on the density of the lightened hair.
Hope this clears some things up and if you are interested in getting these types of hair color you can always book a complimentary consultation with any one of our four outstanding colorists at Seagull Hair Salon.
xoxo Shaun SureThing for Seagull Hair Salon.
We are SUPER jazzed on our Seagull VIP client of the week: composer, electronic music diva and stylish stone cold fox Natalie Elizabeth Weiss, the mastermind behind Baby DJ School.
As a longtime wildcard in Brooklyn's electronic music scene performing as Unicornicopia and in various collaborations, Weiss has been on our cultural radar for years; old school Seagull readers may remember her first appearance on this blog all the way back in 2010 for her Camp Wanatach residency at Ramiken Crucible. Since then, somewhere between staging a sold-out musical at La Mama, farming with Greek nuns, scoring a fellowship with the Brooklyn Philharmonic and continuing to compose, DJ and perform under various guises, she came up with the THE business idea of the century: teaching babies and toddlers aged 3 months to 3 years how to DJ using Traktor Pro and a midi trigger.
When she launched Baby DJ school last summer, the internet promptly went buck-wild, and for good reason. The concept itself is high grade media catnip: equal parts WTF, truly original, and eerily right on time, perfect for our technology-mediated, digital native-spawning culture—and coinciding neatly with EDM’s meteoric mainstream takeover.
Part of the genius in the idea lies in the fact that, at first, it does sound a little outrageous to teach babies to DJ— even though it's actually not too different from more traditional music lessons for kids. Anyone who's ever seen a toddler go off on an iPad can attest that kids are drawn to techy toys, and Weiss points out that babies as young as three months can recognize songs, that the 3 month to three years age range is a golden period of motor skill, memory and language absorption. No wonder every DJ in town was so heated on Twitter when they first heard the news.
The story broke accompanied by memorable, can-this-be-real press shots depicting Weiss leaning beatifically over an M-Audio trigger pad and a laptop, chilling with a fedora-clad baby against sun-dappled Seurat parkscape.
After the lol-worthy wave of miffed DJs and handwringing on the social feeds, Baby DJ School quickly leveled up from viral clickbait to the Wall Street Journal and NYMag Approval Matrix to global news sensation.
Now that Baby DJ School classes are selling out, Weiss is extending the brand by producing an original Baby DJ School children's album, featuring songs about the history of techno music and elements of disco. Perfect for electronic music lovers who are also parents of babies! We can't wait to hear it, and we might not have to wait too long—when Weiss dropped in to get this deconstructed mid-length cut from Shaun, she was on her way to a major meeting, and she's determined to win a Grammy for best children's record. She's squeezing all this in in addition to collaborating on a sound piece with Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and dropping vocals on the new Eaters record.
We are loving what Shaun did with Natalie Elizabeth Weiss's iconic blunt dark bangs and long hair: a nod to Shaun Surething signature nowhere length with killer mod statement bangs and the perfect hint of texture.
Here's to Natalie Weiss holding it down while her DJ school blows up! Here at Seagull we have endless love for women on the midi controller, female entrepreneurship, tech education, electronic music and of course BABIES. Props to our VIP Client of the week for bringing these things together!
PS- If you want to know more, of course there's a short VICE doc about Baby DJ School. It's good- check it out.