AUDE ANDRE GABZI

AUDE ANDREA GABZI

Aude Andrea Gbazi’s hair is tightly pulled back and parted down the middle, two little space buns crowning her head, just above her ears, accentuating her bright eyes and smooth skin. “The worst hairstyle is no hairstyle,” she says with a smile. “But in reality, there isn’t really bad hairstyle, there’s more bad texture, or rather bad hair that isn’t properly taken care of.”

Gbazi has neither - her hair is well maintained and styled, but it’s less about what she does to herself and more about what she does to others that has made her one of the more in-demand hairstylists in Paris working on campaigns from Swarovski to Yves Saint Laurent. Now working for some of the biggest fashion houses in the country, Gbazi was born and raised in the 16eme arrondissement in the French capital to parents from Cote d’Ivoire, and never set out to become a hairstylist.

“Well, I was doing hair all the time,” she explains with a laugh. “I had little sisters, so I had to do their hair - it was like a subliminal message from my mom. But it never occurred to me to do that as a job.” Instead, Gbazi was more inspired by her father’s line of work - when she was in primary school, he worked in a clothing factory for the French brand Jennyfer. She dreamed about working in fashion and becoming a stylist, though her family wasn’t initially supportive of the idea.

“I did a professional school in fashion and my dad wanted to kill me!” she recalls with a laugh. “But I didn’t care. I wanted to make clothes. Then I went to Studio Bercot [the fashion school], but I got bored of it after 6 months.” When Gbazi was in high school, she did several little internships, including one at Andrea Cruz, who told her about the cult lifestyle and clothing store in Paris, Colette (the store closed permanently in 2017). Gbazi ended up working at Colette Roussaux’s birthday party, which led to a job offer at the beauty counter at her namesake shop. Through Andrea Cruz, Gabzi met the hairdresser Tsona Tsene. “They were looking for someone who could work with Black hair, so I started working with him pretty regularly,” Gbazi explains. “But I was doing it because he was my friend, and I was helping him out. But I started to like it, I felt like there was an artistic element that I really liked.”

Working at Colette was like a permanent networking opportunity. Everyone working in fashion, beauty, and hair used to come through the store, and Gbazi began to meet all sorts of interesting characters. In all industries, relationships can really propel’s one career, but that might be even more true in the close-knit fashion world. “[Colette] is really the boutique where you know everyone. I knew this whole world of production, stylists, make-up artists, photographers. That really helped me with hairstyling. People were like “Oh she does this now!” and I was like “No, I don’t but you can give me work!”

“I had little sisters so I had to do their hair - it was like a subliminal message from my mom. But it never occurred to me to do that as a job.”

Gbazi began to do more shows with Tsene, who would call her whenever he needed an extra set of hands. “At the time there was this Black Lives Matters vibe,” she says of the anti-racism social movement that began in 2013, but really entered the zeitgeist following the 2020 George Floyd protests in the United States in May 2020. “It was really the ambiance. There weren’t a lot of hairstylists who knew how to do Black hair.”

She’s aware that she started at a very particular point in the industry, when an undeniable culture shift was starting to take place. “I’ve seen a ton of change, even just this last year,” she says. “Agencies and production have really equipped their teams now.” Even five years ago, it wasn’t common for brands to send models down the runway with intricate braided hair stylists, or to put so much of an emphasis on hiring Black talent. Fashion in France remains an industry dominated by a certain socio-economic milieu, and accusations of racism have long plagued the domain.

“Of course you know that some industry people are surfing on this wave, but it’s kind of all unsaid,” says Gbazi seriously. “I mean, someone isn’t going to be like “Oh my god a Black person!” but it’s still in the air, and everyone knows. It’s super delicate, and what do you do as a Black woman? Either you spend all your time polemicizing or you choose to be someone who profits from this situation and makes something out of it - to develop Black teams, to put us more forward to be the best people in this domain. So I’ve decided to be the latter, to advance things in a certain way.”

“It was really the ambiance. There weren’t a lot of hairstylists who knew how to do Black hair.”

For Gbazi, that has also meant working nonstop. “Fashion at its core is bourgeoise,” she explains. “So you need to have some money on the side to start working in this industry.” She continued working at Colette, saving money, as she assisted hairstylists and learned the industry ropes. “The first years I was working it was just editorial, you can really let go creatively. But there’s no money. From the photograph to the assistant, no one is getting money. And I was an assistant, so my name wasn’t even always included!”

Either you spend all your time polemicizing or you choose to be someone who profits from this situation and makes something out of it - to develop Black teams, to put us more forward to be the best people in this domain. So I’ve decided to be the latter, to advance things in a certain way.”

But those early years were an invaluable crash course in professionalizing her career, and helping her understand that hair was really a domain where she could excel. Her advice for young creatives in the industry is simple: “You really have to assist other artists,” she says. “You can’t be scared of this word. That’s really how you learn. Hairstyling in fashion or hairstyling in a hair salon is a totally different word. Make yourself available, because the more available you are the more people call you, and the more opportunities you have.”

Word began to spread that Gbazi was both talented and available, and soon, several important hair stylists, including Guido Paulo, started reaching out. “Each season I work with Guido, I do some really amazing shows,” Gbazi explains. “He works with Dior, Louis Vuitton, Versace, all the really big shows with big names. I’m really appreciative of the fact that I’m surrounded by excellence, and I always see beautiful things.”

“I mean, someone isn’t going to be like “Oh my god a Black person!” but it’s still in the air, and everyone knows. It’s super delicate, and what do you do as a Black woman?

Working close to greatness has rubbed off on Gbazi. “Guido works very classic, but it’s all about perfection,” she says. “So that’s how I’ve learned as well, to be a perfectionist in hair.” Sending coiffed models down the Dior runway taught her how to make a chignon with a surgeon’s precision; working for Ludovic de Saint Sernin was a crash course in “wet” hair.” “When you have fashion, you need the hair and beauty that goes together,” Gbazi says. “For me everything is connected.”

In the last year, Gbazi has started to work a bit more on her own, after nearly five years of assisting - and she’s finally really identifying as a hair stylist, after years of wavering with the association. “I’m starting to have more and more interesting jobs, but I don’t think I have a dream campaign,” she says. “Now I just want to do more shows, and be at the maximum of my capacity. Coloring, wigs - there are so many things that I want to learn, and there’s so much I still have to learn about Afro hair and Caucasian hair. If there’s one domain I would really like to master, it would be wigs and coloring. I really want to see how far I can go.”

Photography & Fashion : Jonas Martinez

Photography & Fashion assistant : Klarysse Prepont

Words : Sarah Souli