Ateliers gratuits aux Galeries Lafayette

This past Thursday, I received an invitation to participate in one of Galeries Lafayette's free summer workshops. This particular one had a focus on hair, with the theme being "Learn how to do summer's hottest hairstyles".

The atelier was held up on the 4th floor of the Coupole, in the "Salon Opéra". 

Each of us had a small work station set up with a head of hair, brushes and photos of hairstyles we could learn how to do. 

Here are some close-ups:

There were four stylists for 8 participants, so it was pretty hands-on. But what was frustrating was that none of the stylists really seemed to know how to do any of the hairstyles. They would try to show us first on the dummy, and it would end up looking like a hot mess. And they'd be like "See, voila!"  It was really odd though, because they had already been doing this same session every Thursday for a month, so you'd have thought they would have had some practice by then.

I ended up next to a really nice French girl, and she was much more of a hair expert than they were, so once they'd leave, she'd end up redoing it.  We had a good laugh each time, but in the end, it was sort of a waste of time. 

The stylists were from a makeover agency (that was uncreatively called "Makeover and Style Agency" lol), and they were supposed to give us a hairstyle of our choice at the end of the session.  I ended up with the guy you see in the first photo, and he was so slow and did an absolutely horrible job.  I asked for a braided low bun, and he ended up putting on this strange leather headband, and then doing a sloppy updo on one side and a very intricate braid on the other.  And then on top of that, he wanted to add a very large, bright red flower right on the back of my head. The French girl next to me thankfully, and very diplomatically, said "Um, I think if you do that it will hide your creative work".

Even without the flower though, it ended up being very bipolar and strange looking.  But oh well - it was an "experience" and I walked away with a few free accessories - the strange leather headband, a daisy headband and a foam donut for making hair buns.

If despite all that, you're interested in trying it out, there are two more sessions - one on August 11 and one on August 18, from 4-5:30. The sessions say they are full online, but if you just show up a few minutes beforehand at the salon opéra (4th floor, in the lingerie section), there is an extremely good chance you will get a spot as all the previous sessions have only had 25% of the enrolled participants show up.