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    2014 Earth Jam Fashion Benefit: “Artistry”

    This past Tuesday, Nurtur the Salon hosted its annual Earth Jam event at the LC Pavilion at the Arena District. The event featured a fashion show with hair and make-up by Aveda students, a silent auction, and food catered by Fit Food Columbus. All proceeds from the event went to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Ohio.

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    The fun, care-free atmosphere of the event represented everything that Nurtur the Salon tries to embody in their business. “Our goal is to keep the emphasis on the customer,” said marketing director Cheyenne Webb, “we really try to strike a balance between external beauty and internal self. We don’t want them to just feel good for that brief period that they’re with us, we want to to help them maintain that on a daily basis.”

    Earth-Jam-Fashion-Benefit-02For the runway show, Aveda students were paired together and given a ‘muse’ to serve as inspiration for their hair and make-up looks. “We wanted to give them a firm foundation to work with,” said Webb, “But from there, they could go in any direction they wanted to.” Some of the themes students were given to work with were artists, such as Andy Warhol and Monet; famous fashion houses like Chanel and Alexander McQueen; and legendary hair stylists such as Vidal Sassoon and Antoinette Beenders.

    The show was divided into ten mini-shows called ‘segments,’ before each segment a video was played which told the story behind the mude. After the video, a single model would walk the runway, clad only in a floor length black robe. But the somber robe was only a backdrop, the shining stars were the fantastical wigs that each model wore. Each model wore a wig that was somehow representative of the theme of the segment, an opening quote to the story that the other models were going to tell.

    The show opened with a segment by Aveda alumni, called Full Spectrum: Color. The model who opened the segment wore a tall, rainbow wig, with every color of the rainbow swirling through the strands. The color popped even more against the backdrop of the black gown. The other models in the segment carried on that theme, clad in all-back ensembles which allowed the rich colors of their hair and make-up to shine through.

    Another notable segment was inspired by legendary fashion house, Chanel. A short video played before the segment, telling Coco Chanel’s story and the unconventional approach she took to style. While Coco herself was known for her understated menswear-inspired styles, current creative director Karl Lagerfeld is known for the luxe, opulent styles he’s brought to the brand. The segment was a harmonious pairing of both the simple and the ostentatious.

    The opening look was one that Lagerfeld himself would have loved, with the model’s sky-high wig styled into a magnificent gold and black chandelier, complete with dangling crystals and Chanel’s iconic interlocked ‘C’s at the top. The other looks channeled both Coco and Karl beautifully, with simple black lines and strands of delicate pearls in honor of Coco, and lush colors and lavish bejeweled hair pieces that were inspired by Lagerfeld’s fall 2012 line for the brand.

    Andy Warhol’s pop art was represented in another segment, with bold primary colors, strong lines, and cartoonish mimicry. The opening model had her brightly colored wig styled in the shape of a Campbell soup can, reminiscent of Warhol’s notable 1962 work, Campbell’s Soup Cans. The rest of the segment took a very interesting approach, with models wearing white t-shirts emblazoned with pictures of celebrities done in the Warhol style, such as Pink, Marilyn Monroe, and Twiggy. But what really set the segment apart, was that each model mimicked the hair and make-up that was on the t-shirt they were wearing. It was like seeing a group of Warhol paintings come to life. 

    The last segment was a tribute to Aveda founder Horst Rechelbacher, who passed away from pancreatic cancer in February. The segment paid homage to Rechelbacher’s never-ending mission to make beauty products more eco-friendly, with models clad in all-natural materials such as burlap and flowers, who were seemingly “doing battle” with models clad in plastic and synthetic fabrics. In the end, the natural and the synthetic came together as one, which represented Rechelbacher’s dream of the beauty industry becoming a more environmentally-friendly place.

    The evening all in all was a success, with the event raising over $50,ooo for Big Brothers Big Sisters, and showing the audience that the beauty industry and the eco-friendly can exist together in a harmonious union. For an event that started out as a small show at the Aveda school, then moving to the Gateway Film Center, and finally hosting over 800 people at the LC, where Earth Jam will go in the future, is anyone’s guess. As Webb said, “Where we’ll be next year is beyond my imagination.”

    Photos by Nicole Wehner — courtesy of Nurtur the Salon.

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    Audrey Bonfig
    Audrey Bonfighttps://columbusunderground.com
    Audrey is an intern writer at Columbus Underground who writes about fashion trends, events, and boutiques local to the Columbus area. She is as an Ohio State graduate and is currently pursuing her Masters of Science in journalism at Ohio University. In her spare time, she blogs about everything from fashion to horror movies on her blog The Renaissance Chick.
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