How Medusa Deluxe Pulls Back the Velvet Curtain on the Production of Glamour
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Under the fluorescent lights of a dingy community centre, a vertiginous structure is appearing. At once highly skilled and yet low tech. What will soon be an immaculate piece of beauty fantasy is revealing its unglamorous insides. Pipe cleaners, rubber bands, synthetic bundles, wire supports get stuffed with cotton wool. Temporary hair sculptures devised from things you can order off Amazon, then the seams are hidden. Shellacked with hairspray and dusted with glitter after the model returns from their smoke break.
The most show-stopping beauty looks have been created in rooms with tiled ceilings and a grotty microwave. Ephemera that is hours in the construction but only lasts as long as a photograph or for a judge to consider it. In a picture elements converge into something poetic, lighting hits just right, a model becomes transfigured for a brief moment, but outside of the frame, often things are decidedly less glamorous. Medusa Deluxe takes this world behind ‘the world’ then drops it into a noir. A murder at a competitive hair competition sets a classic whodunnit in motion and serves as a framework for a visual and emotional exploration of the backstage world; A space where both fantasy hair creations and the artists that make them reveal their guts.
Hairdressing exists at an intersection of artistry and providing a service. That is true whether you are in a high street salon or behind the scenes of Vogue. That dynamic of course shifts back and forth a little depending on whether you are working on a model being paid to embody your ideas, or you are being paid to realise a client’s vision of an improved self. But either way, that tension always remains and the best hairstylists, makeup artists and manicurists understand that they are providing something holistic and intimate as well as artistic. Ultimately these crafts, no matter how elevated and conceptual, are about touching someone else and entering their personal space for long periods of time.
It’s a dynamic we see explored in some poignant but also hilarious ways within Medusa Deluxe. Religious Divine sees her work as a nurturing act capable of bestowing a blessing, whilst cut-throat competitive Cleve doesn't notice the quiet suffering of her model who is too shy to interrupt a salacious monologue and ask to take a break. With the dim, noirish lighting, Hardiman evokes a church - which is fitting, as the unique intimacy of a backstage environment does feel confessional. When else other than providing or receiving a beauty service do we experience the feeling of wanting to ask advice, or discuss our problems with a relative stranger who is laying hands on you?
“To a beauty fanatic, watching these styles progress and move within the world of Medusa Deluxe is as much of a joy as the performances.”
A paradox of editorial beauty that I love is that it is a craft without a set process. Its lack of formal rules compared to say ceramics or oil painting gives rise to ingenuity. The nature of styling for competitive hair competitions or for shoots and shows is that the work needs to be something new and ingenious. Referential of course, but you are never really making anything that has been created before, rarely even has the artist been able to fully practise the look outside of studio prep and experimentation.There is no obvious or correct way to create the type of hairstyles we see in the film and the best hair artists will have developed a process unique to them. Often utilising non traditional materials or using materials in untraditional ways. Working with a combination of expertise, experience and reactions on the fly. It’s art work with a living and ever changing material that might need to be adapted on the go because a hair pin is digging in or the model's hair is thicker than previously thought. For the models also, sitting for the hours necessary to create these looks becomes a feat of endurance. In some of the moments that I loved most in the film, because they felt so honest to the reality of backstage, we see models with frayed nerves venting in the break room and with teary eyes patting wigs to try and relieve the pain.
Director Thomas Hardiman tapped fashion legend Eugene Souleiman to design the hair for Medusa Deluxe. Souleiman is one of the most influential names in the industry and is behind some of the most iconic imagery of the last thirty years. He has designed the hair for campaigns and shows by Yohji Yamamoto, Balenciaga, Chanel, Issey Miyake and Ann Demeulemeester, amongst others. It’s pretty rare for a fashion name to cross over into film; this is Souleiman’s first project of this kind. The uniqueness of his vision means the hairstyles themselves are as mesmerising as the plot. In one of my favourite visuals we follow Inez, model turned amateur detective, in a confection of rainbow extensions cut in dramatic and severe layers bobbing through a dimly lit corridor. Throughout the action we watch Cleve building an elaborate pompidou with a show-stopping final flourish that's only revealed in a dramatic closing sequence. To a beauty fanatic, watching these styles progress and move within the world of Medusa Deluxe is as much of a joy as the performances.
Souleiman told Showstudio that “Hairdressing is a great form of personal expression if you have not been to art school.” This irreverence captures so well a dynamic I love in beauty and that is illustrated in Medusa Deluxe: That fantastical works of art are produced by people without formal art training and outside of the normal structures that recognise it. The works created by the hairstylists in the film are artistic feats, of life or death importance to the characters, high stakes enough maybe even to drive them to murder, yet the competition is a cloistered environment. Winning will not bring public validation, only recognition from a limited group of peers. It is a personal triumph of skill and creativity.
The beauty industry, and the people who work within it, are full of contradictions. Cut throat competitiveness thrives in an environment that is by nature about nurturing. This world is one of outsider artists working in a form that isn't always considered art. Medusa Deluxe lays these tensions bare and treats the work of these hairstylists with a seriousness and reverence that is rarely seen on screen.
Words: Grace Ellington
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