PHOTOGRAPHY & HAIR EDUA HEUZÈ – MODEL & CREATIVE DIRECTION ZOÀRD HEUZÈ
Mother and son creative duo, Edua and Zoárd Heuzé bring us a beautifully reflective body of work, reminiscent of '90s Budapest. Edua- who worked as a photographer and model- recreates on Zoárd some of the iconic hairstyles of the time along with talking with him about the era that she grew up in with topics surrounding the fall of communism, the rise of the subculture and much more.
Edua Heuzé: The most important thing to remember is that in 1989 was the regime change, or 'Rendszerváltás'. This was the end of communism in Hungary. I was born in 1977, so I was 13 years old when the system changed - I was in the first era of teenagers after 40 years of communism. We were not meant to have choices and opinions during this era, and there was major thought control, no freedom of opinion or thoughts. It was at the start of my teenage years when I was suddenly exposed to the whole spectrum. It was in the next few years that new ways of thinking and expressing ourselves became natural, and fashion and style had started to change completely.
Style in Budapest during this time was very DIY. Shops started opening in the 90's coming in from different parts of the world, but no one was able to afford it, so we would wear hand me downs and presents from abroad. Things quickly adapted, and soon enough people had split into two different scenes - you were considered either 'normal' and wore Levi 501s and Replay, or you wore your own makeshift style and expressive haircuts and you were considered 'alternative’. There were different types within this alternative scene, such as ‘Neo hippie’, and ‘Acid Jazz’ amongst other small subcultures.
Not long after the system had changed and people were allowed to express themselves and be free, a place called 'Hairoin' was opened up by 19 year old Oliver, with help in funding from his mother. This became the first trendy hair salon, and it was a very experimental salon run by some guys who took heroin. For years this was the only salon in Budapest where you could go and get an exciting, interesting haircut which was very refreshing.
I was friends with the guys running it, and used to make pancakes for them and hang out with them - they would also experiment with my hair because I'd let them try anything out on it, I really liked the style they were cutting. This is how I started having many different hairstyles such as purple hair, shaved hair, long mixed with short and the 'coconut cut' which was random bits cut into an otherwise bowl cut style hair. I was very interested in their aesthetic and wanted to let them try out their techniques. As a hair salon, they were very experimental with different things such as coloured hair, very short, working with people full of tattoos - these kinds of things had never been seen before, especially during communism. These guys were pioneering a brand new style in Hungary.
Oliver made money by teaching aspiring hairdressers, which is how this style became a big thing and people started getting trendy haircuts. A huge part of the salon was for students to practice, which meant they would cut people's hair for free a lot of the time spreading the style around the city like wildfire. From this, people were seeing it and started to cut each other's hair at home, experimenting and giving each other very out of the ordinary hairstyles.
The hairstyles in the project are loosely based on the sort of haircuts I would have been cutting with my friends' hair and the sort of styles and techniques that they would be cutting in Hairoin - the hairstyles reflecting the attitude I had growing up during this era. When we first moved to London from Budapest I was adamant that I wanted to cut Zoárd's hair into a mohawk, and we did it in the end even though Zoárd was very against it because I loved the style, this is how it came about to base the story mainly focusing on mohicans, punk and alternative hairstyles. We also decided to include an image of myself from the 90’s, showing some of the hairstyles which I had at the time.
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