To create this look, Lanni wrapped the hair figure-eight style in tissue paper and let it set for about two hours. He used Bumble and bumble Holding Spray, which has a high alcohol content, to give the hair memory and achieve extreme texture.
“This looks very liquid to me, like a waterfall of chocolate milk,” says Lanni, who wrapped the ends of the hair vertically to achieve large lopping waves. He used a figure-eight here as well. “It’s less predictable,” he says, “and thus looks more real.”
Lanni wrapped the hair around tiny paper clips, then secured each with a piece of string. “I wanted to create a texture that’s very comfortable feeling, almost like a fabric,” he says. “It’s cozy and warm, like wool, and you want to bury your face in it.”
“She looks very youthful, very approachable and so cute,” Lanni created the ultimate haute couture wig directly on her hair by pinning curls all around and cutting until he created a shape that he loved. “There’s something very nonaggressive about this.”
“This isn’t a look a drag queen could pull off,” laughs Lanni. “It’s very soft, very girly, very feminine.” He started by teasing her hair, then swept it to the side, added extensions, and curled and brushed until he achieved the texture he was after.
“This has a lightness of being,” Lanni says. “It’s both playful and aloof.” Lanni added extensions, brushing and teasing to create a multitude of shapes and sizes. The final touch was a Twenties celluloid hair clip from his personal collection.