“Ballroom dancing was my thing, that’s what I was going to do forever.” I have to admit, it’s not what I expected to hear when I sat down with Darren Lacken, one of Ireland’s top stylists and winner of the 2016 Wella Platinum World Colour Vision Award, in the cosy snug of his salon, Crow St Collective in Dublin’s Temple Bar.
Now, a day at the office could see him on location for world famous fashion brands like Topshop Unique, Diesel Black Gold, Henry Holland and Sass & Bide, shooting covers for the top glossies among them i-D magazine, Neon, Love, Image, Irish Country Magazine and U Magazine, or catching up with clients on the salon floor.
“It’s nice to get a mix of all three. It’s like anything, If you do something every day, you get pissed off doing it. I still love London Fashion Week, I love Somerset house – it’s mad, it’s mental, the people who go to the shows – they can’t get in, they just go to be photographed. I look at them and think, ‘did you get dressed in the dark! what were you thinking?’ But you have all these people trying to photograph them, just in case they are ‘someone,’ and they are posing away! I love it, walking the streets, it’s like Halloween.
“It’s nice working with the models like Arizona Muse or Alexa Chung – they’re really nice. I was a bit star struck by Isabella Blow. I worked with her on the Philip Treacy show at IMMA. She had this energy, and was so lovely. We were running on time and she wasn’t having any of it. She ordered champagne up to the room and Philip was coming in and out with hats. She was this really cool, tiny little woman.
“I love doing editorials and getting to do it abroad. I’m going to Morocco at the end of the month for Arnotts and I am just back from Barcelona where I was shooting an editorial for Kildare Village. It’s such a good crew and I’m so lucky that I get to work with a lot of the same people all of the time. It builds relationships, everyone bounces off each other and if something’s not working, we can say it without anyone crying in the corner. I think I am the least precious person: if you don’t like it, grand. Let’s do something you do like. At the end of the day, it’s the client’s vision and you’re trying to translate that into something that looks amazing and ticks all of their boxes.
You don’t have to be a trainee to assist. I think people think you get to a certain point and wouldn’t assist, but why wouldn’t I?
The competition circuit, however, is something he is happy to leave to his staff. “I will dip in and out, but I want the girls to experience what I’ve experienced. Because I’ve done so many, and don’t get me wrong, you do get disheartened, but I wouldn’t go nuts if I didn’t win. And you see that sometimes, and you think, go home and scream into a pillow.