The Big Tease

“Hair is an accessory,” declared Kerry Warn, the designer responsible for the larger-than-life looks on these pages, and the man in charge of Nicole Kidman’s mane on all her films for the past decade, including The Hours, Cold Mountain, Stepford Wives and the upcoming Australia.

“I think people tend not to enjoy their hair as much as they could,” he said.

Mr. Warn was born in a small town in western Australia, where his sister worked as a hairstylist. “I love the idea that you can transform people, and I guess the dress-up factor attracted me,” he said. As a teenager he traveled to Perth for an intense five-year technical apprenticeship that taught him the history of hair for the past 100 years. (Pompadours! Marcel waves!) Then it was off to London, where he worked for the famed one-name-only Leonard.

Stints at the cosmetics company Molton Brown, plus British Vogue and other glossies, took our hero to New York, then back to London where he booked his first film job, working for the legendary Stanley Kubrick on Eyes Wide Shut. “He was fantastic. A wonderful man,” he said. “It was a high point in my career. … and I’ve done a lot of wonderful things.”

And speaking of high points! Mr. Warn says it’s time to stop flattening your hair into dank oblivion, ladies. “Get over that straight, ironed hair,” he said. “Everyone got into that safe mode. It’s refreshing to look alive again. Have fun with it, change it—and you don’t have to spend a fortune.”

Since 1991, Kerry has been a Creative Consultant for The John Frieda Collection and is the resident authority on “red,” including the Radiant Red product line.

PHOTOGRAPH: Greg Delves STYLIST: Freddie Leiba

Model is Monica Castillo/Ford Agency; makeup by Brigitte Reiss Anderson; assistant makeup by Quinn Murphy; manicure by Rosanne Singleton