I interviewed session stylist Malcolm Edwards for a profile piece for The Scottish Fashion Awards 2010, which honoured him as this year's inductee into the Hall of Fame. He looked pretty terrifying, if you're like me and judge massive bald men with lots of tattoos, but was pretty much the nicest person I have ever interviewed, and easily one of the most interesting (and I've interviewed Basshunter).
Lady Gaga - hair by Malcolm Edwards
Growing up in the small Scottish town of Irvine, Malcolm Edwards plastered the walls of his bedroom with images torn from Vogue, ID and The Face.
Years later his work as a session hair stylist was to grace the pages of those very magazines, and tonight the industry to which he has contributed so much will salute him, as he is inducted into the Scottish Fashion Awards Hall of Fame.
Edwards, 41, has referred to hair as a fabric, and his intuitive understanding of texture and design has seen him translate the visions of countless designers including Miuccia Prada, Vivienne Westwood, Vera Wang, and Christian Lacroix. In his own words: “Designers and photographers aspire to tell a story with their work. Hair is a very visual part of that story; it creates characters, and changes and extends silhouettes, it adds the drama.”
Scottish Fashion Awards Judge Amanda Wakeley hailed him as a “genius hair creative” after he designed the intricate twists, knots and plaits for her Spring/Summer 2010 return to London Fashion Week, adding: “Malcolm worked each girl’s hair individually according to her face. I adore that sort of perfectionism, not to mention brilliance.”
Edwards first discovered eyeliner and peroxide at the age of twelve, and from then on was lost to the fairytale world of fashion. A self-confessed “boy from the ’burbs”, he would make the regular pilgrimage to Glasgow to watch the punks converge on the city’s streets, and credits a documentary chronicling the backstage mania of catwalk shows he watched as a teenager with confirming what he already knew - that he wanted to be a part of it.
His first experience in that world was a memorable one – a job for Scottish clubbers’ bible M8 magazine, which involved a trip to Paris that he describes as a ‘car crash of a shoot’: “It was a complete shambles, and everyone fell out. I was so naïve and didn’t have a clue. I was doing hair in the public toilets outside Notre Dame. But even in the midst of all that I knew that this was what I wanted to do.”
He started his career proper at the fashionable Alan Edwards salon in Glasgow, before packing his bags for London to follow his dream, where he began working for Toni&Guy. Within a few weeks of meeting legendary director Guido Palau, Edwards found himself on a plane to NYC, on his way to do the runway shows at the city’s Fashion Week.
He admits he was overwhelmed by the world he found himself in, and considered stepping away from it, but it was an encounter at an Alexander McQueen show that stopped him.
“I had been planning to take some time away, when I got a call to assist at a McQueen show. Val Garland the makeup artist came up to me backstage and said she had been watching me work in the reflection of her mirror and noticed how fast I was going. She asked if I had an agent, and when I said no, she said told me she was taking me to see hers the next day. And that was how it all started.”
It was only a matter of time before the style bibles he had idolised came knocking, and W, Harpers Bazaar and countless others were featuring his work. Edwards’ status as session stylist supreme was confirmed, and he went on to collaborate with era-defining visionary photographers like Mario Testino and Terry Richardson.
The roll call of fashion houses with whom he has collaborated, on both runway and campaigns, reads like a roll call of the industry’s great and good - Yves Saint Laurent, Burberry, Dior, Moschino, Marc Jacobs, and Hervé Leger among them.
Malcolm Edwards for Moschino
His work is always influential, always driving fashion forward. This season Elle dubbed him ‘the master of the twist’, as one of his favourite looks set the trend of the season after he created elegant up-dos for Matthew Williamson, Amanda Wakeley and Issa’s Spring/Summer 10 shows.
Edwards has had too many career highs to count – he cites working with Vivienne Westwood, whose scene so inspired him as a teenager, McQueen and Galliano, who he calls ‘the last of the true pioneers’, among them.
But for the man who calls himself ‘a creative spanner in the works’ tonight’s honour is right up there: “Where I am from is a huge influence on me. Our national spirit is one that keeps you grounded, and you need that dark Scots humour and cheeky banter in this industry! I am so proud to be Scottish, and it has definitely been an asset in my career, so it’s very flattering for me to be honoured by my home country. It’s also a huge honour to join fellow inductee Sam McKnight, as he’s a hero of mine. And it’s nice for my parents too as coming from Scotland it’s something that will mean something to them!”
