Stylist Spotlight – Adam Livermore

Here is an extended interview from our feature with Adam Livermore for our Minnesota Style in a New York Fashion project.  In addition to winning the Wella National Trend Vision Gold Award, Adam has worked with Naomi Campell, Cher, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Lopez, and countless editorials.  We had a great time getting to know Adam over coffee at Table 12 in the East Village.

JM: How long have you lived in New York?

AL: Just over a year.

JM: Tell me about how you started in hair to where you are now.

AL: I think I’ve been really lucky.  A lot of great things have happened for me from meeting the right people at the right time.  It all started for me at the Aveda Institute.  When I graduated there, I went to Spalon Montage.  I did my apprenticeship there and worked there for about eight years.  During the time that I was working there, I became really passionate about education, so I went to all the classes that were ever offered.  I would even travel to Chicago or New York or San Francisco to take classes at the Wella Studio.  It was through Wella that I started doing editorial work.  They have a competition every year called the Trend Vision Competition.  It’s a big event that they do where hair stylists compete against each other, and it starts with designing a look and taking a photo of it, so I competed and that was how I met the first photographer that I ever worked with.  I just started networking after that photo shoot.  I was always reaching out to anyone and everyone that I wanted to work with.  I never had any embarrassment about emailing any photographer, even if I was positive they would say no.  I would email them and say, “Hey, I would love to test with you.  I love your work.”  Through that, it just started happening.  I started producing photo shoots, really.  I would arrange for a photographer, contact models, pull clothes, then do the hair.  The only thing I didn’t do was take pictures or do makeup.  You just make it happen.  I did that for probably three years or something, building a book, then, once I felt I was ready, I would venture outside of the city.  I would make regular trips to New York to do shoots.  For me, my big break was when I met Oribe when I was working at Spalon [Montage].  He’s been doing really big editorial and fashion work since the 80s.  He was working with all the first generation supermodels and was J.Lo’s hairstylist during the whole “On the 6” thing.

JM: Tell me a bit about the experience of working with celebrities, runway models, and salon clients.  Which has proven to be the greatest challenge?

AL: Well, working with celebrities and working with salon clients is really very much alike.  Working with models is completely different.  A model is a model, so it’s not her concern what you’re doing with her.  Either you are doing what you want or you are taking direction from an art director or designer.  Models are amazing.  They just sit there, and they’re beautiful, and you make them look however you need to.  Their job is to make it look cool.  Models are really easy to work with, usually!  Every now and then you might get a little drama, but really I find that it’s very easy to keep the girls, the models, happy.  If you keep them happy, then everything will look better.  You have to be nice to them.  It’s really pretty easy, unless you get a big diva!  Now working with celebrities and clients is very similar.  The difference is an A-list celebrity has some kind of “thing” that is their thing that they need.  There is some kind of design element that is their thing, that is an important part of their persona, and you have to be very respectful of that; whereas sometimes clients are totally open, and you can cut their hair off, and it’s totally fine.  With celebrities you have to be a little more careful to make sure you make them look like themselves, make them look really good, hopefully, their best (like Goldie Hawn has to have bangs).  There’s always something.  You have [the most] time with celebrities usually.  An A-list celebrity will never come in to the salon.  You go to them, and you’ll have more time with them.

JM: I love that Vanity Fair cover of the “Hollywood Issue.”  Whose hair did you do for that spread?

AL: I worked on Jennifer Lawrence.  I did Jake Gyllenhaal’s grooming and worked on Annie Hathaway.  I’ll tell you a little secret about that cover.  The main cover of the magazine was shot here at Pier 59.  All the rest of it was shot in LA, and it was a composite.

JM: I figured!  I said to myself, there’s no way they got them all on the same schedule!

AL: I was not at the LA shoot, so the main cover is the one that I worked on; so we had Ryan with us, Annie, James, Jake, Jennifer, and Robert Duvall; so to answer the question, I know I’m rambling, I worked on Annie, Jennifer Lawrence, and I did Jake’s grooming.  I actually learned a lot from doing the grooming job with Jake, because men’s grooming is such a different thing, and he came in with a beard, and the photographer didn’t want it.  He didn’t like it for that look.  If you shave a guy really clean, on some guys it’s not flattering; whereas if you leave a little stubble, it contours the face, like blush on a female; so we shaved him down just a bit, and it looked good.  They were so fun.  They’re such fun people.  They’re young and hysterical, and they were giving each other shit.  It was a great environment on the set.

Adam resides in Brooklyn, New York.  His incredible work can be seen on his website.