Søren Bach: hairdresser techniques on fur

Would you believe that the sample on the left is made from North American black mink – the blackest mink there is? Us neither, but here it is after being coloured and cut by the hairdresser and milliner extraordinaire Søren Bach.
“I didn’t know that such a black mink existed! It colours differently to black and other dark minks.”

For the inspiration Fur Vision 2023 collection, Søren worked with four technique samples: two with mink and two with fox.  The sample that really inspired him as a hairdresser, is this one below: hand-dyeing the blackest mink with different bleaches. He also used different types of chains to create the uneven surface on the sample.

Would you believe, the work started with uniform North American black mink? The result is something really different.

 

Fox required studying

Copenhagener Søren has used fur as a milliner in his hat designs. Nowadays he treats fur as a hairdresser: bleaching, colouring, cutting, shaving… How is it?
“Mink is quite like human hair, but it still inspires me. Fox, on the other hand, requires a lot of studying: how the guard hair acts when coloured or cut, and same for the underwool. And then, when you cut fox, it explodes – it’s so thick that it puzzles me.”

What’s more is that when working with human hair, a hairdresser’s job is to make the hair look thicker. “But with fox, it’s just so voluminous that it challenges me as a hairdresser with our cutting techniques.”

Søren loves manipulating fur so that people are looking really closely and thinking “what is this”.
“Fur is so natural and dimensional: the wool, length, shine… I try not to disguise that it’s fur but that’s how I work with my techniques – how to make fur look 3D.”

Søren Bach’s two fox samples: On the left, Arctic Marble fox hand-dyed to reach a kaleidoscope effect. On the right, the sample is hand-dyed Blue fox with Snowtop treatment. It was hand-cut to create an ear on the surface. In the middle, the same ear but with hand-dyed and hand-cut North American mink.

 

We also worked with Søren Bach on the Fur Vision 2022 collections. Read more on the previous collaboration.