Metallica by Benni Tognini, photographed by Ian Golding.
The 80s was a happening time in the history of Queensland hair dressing
too. Anthony Wynne-Hoelscher, a public servant with rock star dreams,
frequented a hairdresser who played great music (always the music) and
had a gorgeous female clientele. “I had no burning ambition to be a
hairdresser but it looked like a cool career.”
That decided he began at the Willy Bach salon in Brisbane. It was 1977
and Hair Expo was in its infancy. “I became interested in helping them
fill a few voids in the program. I talked it over with the salon owner
and we put a few shows together and that went for a couple of years.”
Hoelscher’s
career expanded and he met his wife Susa, also a hairdresser. “In
1988, the guy who started Expo ran out of puff and asked us if we would
like to buy it. We had no idea where it would take us but we knew this
had potential to be a really significant influence on the Australian
hair dressing industry. So we hocked everything and nearly went broke
for the first couple of years.”
At the same time Ian Golding was starting to focus on hair photography.
“I met Anthony in those early days when Expo was just a small trade
show in Brisbane but it had a unique formula of bringing hairdressers
together at a social level as well.” The Wynne-Hoelscher’s and
Golding were soon to become a dynamic trio.
Golding befriended
stylist Benni Tognini who had started his career in 1975 with Stelios
Papas, regarded as the godfather of Queensland hairdressing. “Stelios
has been my mentor,” says Tognini. “Everyone who is anyone came out of
his stable so he really created his own competition.”
After
working with Papas for five years, Tognini opened his own business in
1987. By now Tognini and Golding were a firm creative team. “We had
dreams of doing different things and we worked together to create
images that, to our joy and surprise, were getting published overseas.
Bennie started to win awards with these images. He was a very
avant-garde hairdresser using wigs and massive amounts of extra hair.
People started to hear about Bennie and then my name got out there in
the industry and I began working with lots of other hairdressers.”
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