Bob Recine Stays A Head of the Fashion World

“What am I working on right now? More like, what aren’t I!” exclaimed legendary hairstylist Bob Recine at the opening of “Bob Recine: The Alchemy of Beauty,” a three-day pop-up exhibition of photos of the coiffeur’s more avant-garde creations which opened at the Hole Gallery last Wednesday in conjunction with the launch for his new book of the same title. “It’s been coming together for years now,” says Recine of the book, “because I have a very busy schedule outside of what people consider hairdressing.”
 
The work, out next month by Freedman/Damiani, features images from Recine’s collaborations with the likes of Vanessa Beecroft, as well as photography by Mario Sorrenti, Robbie Fimmano, and Steven Sebring. These range from a 2002 image of a wind-swept, white blond Pamela Anderson for Another Magazine to a Sorrenti-shot Vogue Italia editorial of Sasha Pivovarova with a face-obscuring hair pin hairpiece. Alchemy also shows some of Recine’s less hairy—but no less heady—projects, like a delicate drawing of a bird in ink on paper and a hairpin sculpture of the female form. “I’m actually looking for new photographers to collaborate with, more sculpture and painting,” says Recine. “As a prolific person, it’s a hard question to answer.”