It's Not Sushimi - It's SUSHAIRME!

Funny story really, last year I was inspired by my friend Emma B to invest in a sushi making kit and I just loved the process of making sushi, it relaxes me actually.

Well one day while making sushi and rolling up the bamboo mat, I got to thinking about sushi and how it could be interpreted in hairstyles. Afterall in my opinion sushi not only tastes yummy its quite esthetic too, the shapes, textures and colour of sushi when its all made up and I started coming up with ideas of how I thought someone could turn hair into sushi.

Meet Myke O'Halloran, hairstylist and hairdress at Pia Lane in Brisbane. Myke took my idea one step further and actually incorporated real ingredients in sushi making, less the actual rice. For rice, he used white hair spray, but the rest of it, the sea weed, the caviar, the raw salmon for sushimi was all real and very smelly.

Our poor models, Sarah Pritchard of Division and Chanel Olive Thomas of Viviens had no idea what they were in for, despite seeing the mood board.

For the brief of the mood board, I wanted to draw upon different cultural aspects of Japanese art and theatre. So with some researching, I referenced the Geisha, Kabuki and Samurai traditions in Japan and tried to fuse and interpret them in the makeup - the white painted faces, the strong, thick black brows and then ginger coloured lips and eyes which I referenced on the actual ginger slices served with sushi.

Form me personally, I view Japanese culture and art as very precise and minimalistic, down to even their architecture they use clean lines, their transport is always punctual and precise and their cities spotlessly clean.

So for me I interpreted the clean lines and precision with even lighting, some may call flat lighting, and very crisp white background - so nothing is to take away from the model wearing all that sushi in her hair. Everything in harmony or zen like - all melting together.

For the styling, I wanted to reinforce the culinary aspect of sushi, so I black lacquered a $2 fan and stuck rice onto it, to give a nice textural contrast. Then made a chocker out of chopsticks stuck into a bed of rice, a sea weed wrap chocker and I halved one of the bamboo mats used to roll the sushi and made it into another chocker for one of the looks.

Myke then incorporated as well the culinary esthetics of sushi, using chopsticks of course, and the bamboo rolling mats, sea weed and ingredients like the caviar and salmon.

VIOLA! You have just been SUSHAIRED!

I want to thank again my amazing models who were so enthusiastic and willing on the day to put up with the fishy smell and stick things in their mouth like caviar which they hated hahaha. Better them than me I say! hehehehe.

Cheers to a fantastic team with Makeup by Jenny Ockenden, Hairstyles by Myke O'Halloran and our lovely models Sarah and Chanel. And artistic direction, styling and photography by MUAH! GO TEAM!

And now to top it off with desert - WE GOT PUBLISHED IN IMAZINE DARIZINE - which is a Japanese fashion magazine SEE IT HERE ONLINE - http://www.darizine.com/fashion/fs037.html

I'm really pleased that for a Japanese publication they liked our interpretation of sushi on hair! As long as we were able to respect their culture and do a great job interpreting it, I am happy.

I must admit its been about nearly 2 months since that sushi shoot, and I somehow can't bring myself to eat sushi or make it - I think I was all sushi-ed out after that day of raw smelly ingredients and mopping up the caviar on the studio floor. But I'm kinda getting my sushi cravings again, so I think all will be well with the world again.