Guido Palau on how he transformed Kaia Gerber for their new book

The result is closer to a DIY zine, or a “document” as he calls it, than a glossy coffee table book, which is exactly how Palau wanted it; the lo-fi, “roughed up” quality of it speaking to his subversive, punk ethos. “It wasn’t meant to be a work of high art photography,” he says. “I almost feel like it’s a pop video being put in a book. Just a quick moment. I look at the images more as a collective not as individual stills. To me, it’s a speedy flipbook of all these different hairstyles.” Here Palau shares all about how the book came together, getting nervous about taking on the role of photographer, and how Gerber found moments of authenticity amidst the wig madness.

HOW THE PROJECT CAME TOGETHER

“I did a book about three years ago [#HAIRTESTS]. I took pictures on my iPhone when I did hair tests for a designer’s show and then I just thought, ‘Oh I’m going to make a book of these.’ I love collaborating with people, with photographers and all that, but it’s nice to do something completely on your own; to do a project from a conceptual idea in your head and then see it through to a final thing. After the last book, I was working with Kaia and I said ‘would you like to do something together?’ I wasn’t quite sure what I meant really. I didn’t know what it was going to end up being, I didn’t have a master plan for it.

When I’m working in different countries around the world, I often go wig shopping and so I had a collection of wigs that I hadn’t used. When Kaia came to the space, I just started doing the wigs and I got my iPhone and my assistants got their phones and we filmed it. We kind of shook our phones while we were doing it because I didn’t want it to look like a photograph, I wanted a bad video still or some weird, pixelated blurry thing. I wanted a lo-fi-ness. So it was just a fun day with people, an ad-hoc kind of situation. Then I got the images and thought what it could look like and it became this series of moments in each wig character.” 

THE LO-FI, PUNK AESTHETIC

“When I first came to New York you’d see weird, raw videos of people on chat shows, on cable TV. It was all very early video and very early ideas of style in the 70s and 80s. Coming from my generation, everything to me has a punk ethos. With all my hair, it’s always a little bit subversive, I hope, because that’s what I was attracted to – the oddness in things. So with this project, I wanted that subversive feeling and in the images there are lots of dichotomies. Kaia looks innocent but it feels a bit suggestive. There was nothing suggestive about it, she was actually singing. But the way we screen-grabbed it, they became these moments.

“She was saying the other day that, even though she was acting or modelling, they’re all moments of how she feels sometimes, so she was representing herself. When I first screen-grabbed the images, I sent them to her and together we worked out what it was going to actually look like. I didn’t want it to be my project, I wanted to be our project. I wanted it to feel like she could edit the film, edit pictures out where she didn’t like the way she looked, she could have a say in this thing. So she was really a collaborative part of the process.”

TRANSFORMATIONAL ABILITY OF HAIR

“The book is called Hidden Identities and it’s called that because we all hide our identity in a way, but hair can bring out identity that’s hidden. Every time we changed the wigs, Kaia felt different or it meant that she could act in a certain, very extroverted way that maybe, if I’d have used her real hair, she wouldn’t have felt so comfortable [to do so]. 

“It’s never-ending, the characters and the different personas you can create with hair. If I was going to do Kaia, I wanted to present her in a way that I don’t think she’s normally seen. And I think she enjoyed that process, I don’t think she would have enjoyed it so much if I had just done her hair. But putting these character wigs on her, I think she found it a fun and creative experience. I was speaking to her the other day, and she said that she felt that it did bring out sides to her, when the wigs would change she would instantly have a reaction to it. And she does similar modelling throughout but I don’t think, without those subversive wigs, she would have acted like that. So it’s interesting how hair can change you.”

IDENTITIES

“I think women especially go through different ideas of identity all day long. Through the years I’ve been working and talking to women about how their identity changes from mother, wife, lover, all these different things that a woman feels she has to be and maybe the hair is a device to change that. I wanted that represented – I know these are very heightened ideas of it – but [the book] does feel about women’s identities to me. I don’t think men have so many different ideas about their hair identity. I mean, hair is very important to men, as well, but I think it’s much more complex with women. And that’s why a lot of women don’t want to cut their hair because there is a security to having it in a certain way.

“I always say, it’s such a powerful thing if you’ve got the courage to cut your hair, because it will give you such a different outlook on yourself and how people perceive you. To cut your hair once in your life in a radical way, and let it grow out and become something else is a really empowering thing. Or put a wig on one evening and change who you are. I think part of life is a fantasy.”

TAKING ON THE ROLE OF PHOTOGRAPHER

“I got a bit nervous on the day because when Kaia showed up I didn’t really know what it was gonna look like. There’s a little bit more apprehension and nerves to it than if I was actually working in my proper role. I mean, probably because I wasn’t going behind the camera and fiddling with a lens – I was just doing the hair and then running back – I don’t really feel like it was photography. But I did get a bit more nervous, because normally I’m [just one] part of the puzzle. And then when it’s your thing, and you’ve brought Kaia in on it, I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve got to pull this off.’

“The lo-fi [aesthetic] came because I’m not a photographer. I like the authenticity of the project and the rawness of it. It’s not meant to be a book. It’s meant to be a document or an early fanzine. In my mind, these weren’t images that you were going to study, it was more as a collective thing. When it’s a proper photography book you look at each image and it’s got a story and it’s got the light and the print. I’m not a photographer, it’s not about that, it’s more about the idea as a whole. The hairstyles and Kaia and the thoughts of identity. It’s like a quick thing in my mind, although I can’t tell people how to look at it.”

A book launch and signing with Guido Palau and Kaia Gerber will be held at Dover Street Market New York on May 4. Find all the information here.