Being fairly new to the industry, Roxanne Benli knows that she's lucky enough to be able to look at hair with an unbiased perspective. She feels that her eyes and mind are always drawn to movement. With this collection, she was not only aiming to produce something interesting with a hint of movement, but also something that was soft and gentle. Roxanne wanted to keep the series simple so as to focus on the hair. Shapes and lines, soft contrast between dark and light, smooth elements and texture, strong and straight lines, and soft, wavy fluff were all purposely juxtaposed.
Roxanne's plan was to work with natural hair color and to accentuate the styling with hues only where needed and using soft, raw, dusty earthy tones. Her goal was to be able to look at an everyday object, take that shape and translate that into hair.
"Nature was my reference for shapes," said Roxanne, "particularly the ocean: the earthy colors of the plants and the rocks, the mysterious sea creatures that lurk beneath the surface of the water and the windy, breezy movement of the waves and the wind. All of which, without me realizing until looking at my end result of my collection, was majorly influenced by the work of my rokk ebony colleague and 2014 AHFA Avant Garde Hairdresser of the Year, Chung-Yang “Yoshi” Su. He has been a huge influence on me as a hairdresser. Assisting Yoshi throughout the last year, I have absorbed so much information and knowledge and without realising it. The ability to take hair and mould it into a shape, an outline."
Being an apprentice in Melbourne and building her knowledge and career from the ground up, Roxanne was drawn to include other independent Melbourne, creative women in her process for creating her first collection. Gabrielle Adamidis from Hopeless Lingerie and Shauna Phoon from Other Earth Jewellery were both kind enough to allows use of their exclusive handmade items to complement the ideas and to help bring the story together.
Hairdresser & Colorist: Roxanne Benli • Photographer: Stephanie Cammarano • Makeup artist: Sarah Baxter • Models: Hannah Podporin, Ashlee Scotland, Helena Dong, Caesi Hill, Courtenay Bisson, Amy Pollock • Styling: Hopeless Lingerie by Gabrielle Adamidis & Other Earth Jewellery by Shauna Phoon
