Natasha Balabanova about the elite section of Intercoiffure Mondial

Natasha Balabanova , top-artist, trendsetter, founder, owner of the Beauty Salon brand Natasha Balabanova, president of Intercoiffure Ukraine, a global organization of elite hairdressers ICD Mondial, has been a member of the organization since 2000. And throughout the entire period of creativity, Intercoiffure Mondial managed to become a great part of life and a great history. During the live broadcast, Natasha told us a little more about her story.

Natasha, please tell us a little more about Intercoiffure Mondial?

The elite section of Intercoiffure Mondial has existed for 95 years. It was created in Europe by hairdressers in Sweden, France and England, and then little by little it began to develop and enter new regions. This is a powerful global organization of elite hairdressers from all over the world.

This is a great story of great hairdressers, hard workers, and owners of beauty salons. You can come to the organization only by recommendation, because here there is an internal culture of those people who came to their own business, each developing it in their own country, opening schools, salons, academies that create a world of art.

The organization constantly holds congresses, which take place either in Asia or in Europe. These are always beautiful venues with the most expensive locations, shows, meetings, sessions.

This is a whole life with its own office in Paris, each section member of which is its small owner. This means that each of us can come to Paris, come to the office, drink a cup of coffee, look at the archives and even have a photo shoot there.

This is a huge work and life of the organization, which is like one big family.

The goals of the organization are simple: unification, creation of fashion trends, as well as organization of projects parallel to this movement: Education for life, Trend Blast competition and much more.

The section itself has an incredible history, and the most remarkable thing is that it is constantly rejuvenated. Such famous creators as Vidal Sassoon, Alexander de Paris, Luis Longeras are leaving and new ones are coming.

How did you come to this organization?

At that time, the representative of the Wella Professional brand in Ukraine was Alexander Ferner. He knew us and our work very well. And at that stage (2000) we created our own trend programs, hairstyle parades. He recommended us to the leadership, the central committee, so that Ukraine could become one of the elite hairdressers. And so in 2000, the Intercoiffure Ukraine section, consisting of 20 people, became one of the world elite. And these 20 people were chosen directly by Alexander himself. Wella remains a strong supporter of Intercoiffure Mondial worldwide to this day, serving as its Platinum Partner.

At the start, I immediately became an art director and remained there for 5 years. In 2001, Vyacheslav Dudenko and I were given the opportunity to go on stage and present our show program High Street Evolution, where we demonstrated an absolutely young, fresh look.

With this speech we announced Ukraine to the whole world. There were a huge number of such trips and performances. Then I was invited to be the art director for creating fashion trends. And since 2010, I have been an art director for Eastern European countries.

I'm like the eternal art director of my life (laughs).

You said that one of the global goals of Intercoiffure Mondial is to create trends. How exactly are these trends created?

The directions and trends themselves in which fashion develops are created by agencies. And organizations such as Wella, Lorea'l and Intercoiffure Mondial buy them from developers.

How do the developers themselves collect these trends? These agencies have intelligence officers who collect “slides” from the streets and see what people prefer. This is how trends come out of the streets and go there.

The company buys these trends, we are inspired by them before Paris, we look through and select what we like, we select models with a certain type. And when we already arrive in Paris, then everything happens very quickly: 4 hours to meet with the model, cut/dye/treat/try tresses, do hair, makeup, choose clothes and shoot it all in an hour.

This is very fast work. It was this experience that taught me to think in styles. Always think about how everything should look holistic. A large team works on such trend shoots. And if this is Paris, for example, then everything is always clearly planned. Today we talk about fashion, then we discuss the details as a team. It's all teamwork, it's cool. Representatives from different parts of the world gather, each with their own vision gets involved in the work. And I can’t say that we proudly do something on our own.

I remember well the moment from the shoot, how I was working on the model’s hairstyle, putting out the ponytail, it was heavy, made of tresses, and a strong structure was needed. And then Maurizio Pino, who does huge festivals in Brazil, finds a huge wire somewhere and attaches it to this tail. This means that if something doesn’t work out for someone, then we all pitch in and help with the idea. Nobody pulls the blanket over themselves. We all work in unison.

The general state of Intercoiffure Mondial is one of friendship, cordiality, love and the possibility of growth. This is a special part of my life that develops me and gives me an understanding of the wider world.