subculture Your hometown can be a big

Alfi e winning his Alternative Hair Visionary award.

infl uence on your life, but for 25 year old Alfi e Booth, he became

everything his hometown of Chorley wasn’t. Now when he goes back to the village his haircut gets the locals talking – and even taking photos! But then Andrew Collinge’s rising star rarely

gets to go home, as when he’s not at the Liverpool training salon as Creative Director, he’s at the Manchester salon wearing the title Style Director. It’s all worthwhile though. And he wouldn’t change a thing. By Jo Charlton

the one to watch

RADAR fi rst spotted Alfi e Booth at the out-there Cirque De Tigi show which impressed us on a new level, but what did this rising star think?

One of the most inspiring things about TIGI is you can tell it’s a company run by hairdressers. They went over the top in the most beautiful way, it was like, ‘look how shit hot we can make a hairdressing show’. When you’re a part of that it’s amazing.

You say you were 18 when you joined the hair world, so what were you doing before?

I was doing a performance art and music course in Manchester. I adore music and wanted to be a musician – I wanted to be the next Jim Morrison. But I can’t sing and have quite a monotone singing voice with no sense of rhythm and no sense of pitch – so that didn’t work out! I can do a good Johnny Cash and play guitar though, or I should say I play but I’m not very good.

So you made the move into hairdressing, and – not that we’re complaining – but why hair?

I used to get my hair cut by a girl who I was absolutely in love with. She had a real creative drive and always wanted to do things with my hair and I just let her, obviously. I had some styles I’d never have again, but she did make me think, ‘I dig this, maybe I should give it a try’. I got a lot of shit when I fi rst joined because some people still have this Shirley Valentine image of hairdressing, but they’re over it now.

8

Hair: Alfi e Booth at Cirque de Tigi Photography: Alex Barron-Hough