Tatyana Nitchenko: “Hair is my love”

The article was first published in the magazine “Makeup&YOU Professional”.

– How did your passion for hairdressing begin? When did you first feel interested in the world of beauty? - Back in childhood. I loved sewing clothes for dolls and doing their hair. Then I switched to my mother and friends. When I was ten or eleven, I cut my friend’s hair for the first time. We wanted to give her a bob, but in the end we cut her hair very short. We both got it from our parents later. In general, my friends and I have been drawn to beauty in our own way since childhood - we periodically trimmed each other’s bangs during breaks and pierced our ears during labor lessons. When I graduated from school, I moved to Vladivostok and married a “handsome, hefty” military man. There I thought for a long time about where to go to study and what to become. I wanted to have a prestigious profession - to be an economist or an accountant. Mom said that I need to be a hairdresser, because when I touch my hair, some kind of magic happens to it. At that time, this profession was considered a service job and was not fashionable: what good is it, poking around in your dirty head all the time? Therefore, this message from my mother surprised me: I studied well, there were no C’s in my certificate, even only three B’s, why does she advise me to become a hairdresser when I have every chance of going to college? At that time, I had great ambitions, and my mother believed that I just needed to be happy, and when I came to work on Monday, I didn’t have to wait until Friday evening. She said that the time would come when a good craftsman would earn more money than the average engineer. That you don’t need to conform to someone or something, but you need to develop your inner world and strive to do what you can do well. So I got into hairdressing. We had a very cool and strong college in Vladivostok, where I studied for three years. Every day from eight in the morning to eight in the evening we practiced - doing haircuts and styling. I received the maximum possible base in hairdressing, which I have since improved in various courses. I always listened with interest to the masters who came from abroad, because this is such an exchange of experience, different views on hair among different ethnic groups, different nationalities, different methods of processing, different methods of fixing. – Now that you already have a wealth of experience, do you continue to attend master classes? - Certainly. This is a process that cannot be stopped. I go to seminars both to see something new and to reassure myself that I am doing the right thing. After all, any master is periodically visited by thoughts that he is doing something wrong, wrong, unfashionable, already outdated. I will say without hesitation: I can do almost any hairstyle without training, because I know the origins, base, basics very well. Now there are few people left from whom I can learn, because I have either already learned from almost all of them, or I have nothing to learn from them. But I try to go to seminars on new products and fashion trends. I really like visiting masters, people with extensive experience, yet they teach correctly and competently - they convey not the momentary, but something eternal. – Who do you admire from the world of hairdressing? Who can you classify as these masters? - Big list. All the masters who amaze me are the best masters in the world. If, for example, we take our Russian hairdressers, then the constant master and guru in my professional career is, for example, Vladimir Mikhailovich Garus. The man who can reveal the deepest secrets of hair styling and tell you how to cut your hair so that your haircut looks perfect for another year. Also Nikolai Ivanovich Kharkovsky, who, unfortunately, has already died. He was an expert in women's haircuts. His school opened my eyes to a lot of things. Sergey Zverev is an unsurpassed master, a specialist in all possible directions, be it styling, hairstyle, haircut, men's or women's. A man whom no one has yet surpassed in my eyes. I knew him when he was not an odious public figure, but a member of the team of the Union of Hairdressers and Cosmetologists. They were fashionable then, they went to championships, won them, held seminars and master classes, and put on shows. No one can style and cut their hair the way Sergei Zverev can do! You will not find in Russia a person who does all types of work: styling, hairstyle, men's and women's haircuts equally well. A person who has such a sense of form, balance, weight, proportions. A very professional person, very hard-working. We can talk about him forever. If we talk about the world, first of all it is Vidal Sassoon, the man who created and wove the methodology of the hairdressing industry. Also Alexandre de Paris - chic in hairstyles, his own harmony, a person who always did something of his own, with a dash of individuality, and did it very cleanly, efficiently, beautifully. Guido Palau is a hairdresser who works on the coolest shows for Marc Jacobs and Alexander McQueen. The creative team X-pression Creativos is a trio of guys from Britain who are incredibly creative and incredibly talented. – You admired the fact that Zverev does all types of work equally perfectly. Do you have any personal preferences? What is the most interesting thing for you to do? What is your greatest love? – I have the greatest love for hair. I do both men's and women's haircuts equally well. I was trained for three years as a generalist and I work equally well in all industries. I was hired by the Schwarzkopf team as a teacher on long hair, so now in my activities I focus on seminars on it. But I can’t say that this is my favorite. I believe that people have an addiction to something because they understand more about this issue. If there are no secrets and questions in different types of activities, then there is love for everything. “I love to do this” is a synonym for “I can do this.” – Not always... Some people are cool in their comfort zone - where they are at the top, while others, on the contrary, become bored, they need to invent problems for themselves, to overcome them. – All our great opportunities lie outside our comfort zone. I can say this: I rarely ever fall into my comfort zone. Basically, I have new projects all the time, I work a lot on set. There are enough force majeures, even though this entire audience - actresses, directors, choreographers, singers - is always not very sophisticated, but very conservative. Usually you do something understandable and predictable for them. But the shooting can also take place in an open field, where there are no outlets or anything at all. Or maybe you weren’t given a task in advance, but “we’ll come to the shooting and then we’ll decide everything.” I don't really like it. I like to be prepared for anything. It’s not like when you come to a shoot, you need a specific curling iron, and that’s exactly what you don’t have. – Is there a minimum of tools that you always carry with you in case of such force majeure? – Yes, there is a standard set. A suitcase containing three curling irons, two corrugated irons, an iron, a hair dryer and hairpins, bobby pins, elastic bands, all types of combs and brushes. Basic styling – fifteen bottles. More towels and negligees. But it still happens: something is needed, but it’s not there. It is impossible to carry the entire arsenal! Sometimes you need additional hair, and it’s difficult to get the shade right, even if you’ve seen the model in the photo. – Do you have hairdressing taboos? Something that you would refuse to any customer? – It depends on how much money they pay for it. I have projects in which I participate only on the condition that no one finds out that I did it. There I can do anything, even what I don't like. As for clients, I will never do such chemical treatments on hair, which will then limit both my freedom of action and the client's. For example, lamination, perm. If the client insists, I will offer to do it elsewhere. Firstly, it ruins the client's hair. Secondly, procedures during which there is a very strong evaporation of formaldehyde also greatly harm my health. – Do you remember your first seminar or master class? Why did you even have the idea and desire to teach? – It so happened that teaching has been my main activity all my life. While in my third year of college, I was already teaching some types of work. It happened to me that I could get a haircut just by seeing a picture. The head of our course noticed this and put me in a lesson to do a haircut and at the same time explain to the students how I do it. After I graduated from college and received my diploma, I was offered to remain as a teacher. And I taught there for ten years, only on weekends I sometimes worked in the salon. Then there were different stages of my life. Sometimes I taught less and worked more in the salon. But as soon as I finished working at the college, I was almost immediately offered a contract at Schwarzkopf Professional, and I began teaching. This greatly affects the number of clients, because they need to regularly wear makeup or get their hair cut, and I have constant business trips. – In one interview you called yourself a perfectionist. Only in work or in everything? - Most likely, I was misunderstood. On the contrary, I consider myself not a perfectionist. Maybe I'm interpreting this term incorrectly somehow. A perfectionist achieves his goals no matter what. I act depending on the situation. If I see that I can’t do the job the way I want, the way I see it, then I can stop. It is inevitable that everything in your life will not turn out the way you want. Rain or flight delays cannot be prevented. I don't believe that you need to achieve your goal at any cost. Especially when the phrase “at any cost” implies not very beautiful actions. – What are your sources of inspiration? – To do something creative, truly new, you need to know the basics well. Learn a lot of things, travel everywhere, see, and then try to do something unusual. And inspiration exists everywhere and in everything. It lies on the road, grows on trees. Sometimes I can look at how a designer's jacket and skirt are combined and make a hairstyle out of it. – When you create a hairstyle, are you guided by fashion trends or are you guided by the appearance and structure of your hair? Do you pay attention to fashion trends at all; do they set the mood? – This is my main task. Since I conduct seminars and master classes, I follow everything that happens in the fashion world. I listen to what the client wants. I create the most comfortable hairstyle with which he will feel cool, comfortable, sexy, people will like him and have fun. My task is to make his life as comfortable as possible. If he doesn’t like trends, I won’t impose them, because everyone lives in their own aesthetic world, my task is to find out the client’s desires and needs as much as possible, create work for him that he will like, he will be happy to pay money. If I’m making a collection for a competition, then I study the trends of the competition and understand which collection will be competitive there. If I’m making my own collection, I don’t have to stick to anything, feel free to mix certain textures, or, for example, work with some texture or elements that I haven’t done for a long time. At the casting, I choose models - I choose them based on their physiognomy, hair technical data, and height. And if a client is sitting in front of me, I look at his face, hair, build, desire. – What impressions did you have after the master class, what can you say about Ukrainian masters? – Very interested, very good at studying, want a lot, enthusiastic. The master class went well because there was a lot of attention. It is uncomfortable to train people who are not interested. When people want to learn and do it with inspiration, it adds to your belief that you are not doing nonsense, and that what you are doing is necessary and beneficial. Hair isn't just about recognizing trends, it's also about diligence. And diligence is cultivated only by work and perseverance. There was just a lot of work and perseverance in my master classes!