What to Expect at We Create, Wella Company's Free Virtual Event
What to Expect at We Create, Wella Company's Free Virtual Event

Wella Company will be hosting its first ever We Create virtual event, a global celebration of the hairdressing craft through a jam-packed agenda of shows, seminars, and intimate conversations – open to everyone out there who is, loves or is inspired by global hairdressing community.

Featuring Briana Cisneros, Patricia Nikole, Diane Stevens, Zach Mesquit, Romeu Felipe, Nicole Revish, Patrick Cameron, Renya Xydis, Robert Eaton, Sonya Dove, Darren Ambrose, Rossano Ferretti, Mark Hayes and many more, We Create will also host International Trend Vision Award as part of the program, when the ITVA 2020 winners will be announced live.

The We Create event will be accessible to beauty professionals all over the world and gives the audience the ability to select the topics that interest them most.  Two channels of streaming content will be broadcast simultaneously and will be available for viewing after the live event has ended for up to one month. Both channels are a celebration of creativity, inspiration, business and professional and personal growth, with top artists and experts sharing the latest hair trends, as well as their expertise and knowledge.

  • We Inspire – This channel showcases top artist shows from around the globe, featuring content on how the shows were built from concept to the final reality.  Here will be the announcement and celebration of the winners of all categorises of the International TrendVision competition.
  • We Transform – Dedicated to real-life makeovers and the power of hair transformation, along plenty of inspiration and ideas on how to attract and retain clients with a great portfolio of looks and featured services.

Registration to We Create is completely free and is a gift to the industry. You can register for the event here

MODERN SALON spoke with Laura Simpson, Wella Company’s Chief Marketing Officer, to get a look at the event and some of the topics covered. Read our Q&A below!

Why the decision to host We Create, virtually, now?

LS: We know how much hairdressers missed the connection to each other and their clients in the past year. We also know that hairdressers need inspiration to be able to come back to salons with even more vigor and passion than before. And this is how the We Create concept was born.

‘We Create’ demonstrates our commitment to supporting the professional community at a time when they need it most. For this reason, the event will be free and open to everyone whether they are Wella customers or not. This equates to an estimated investment of over 12 million dollars. That is how the Wella family shows ‘commitment.’

Our top artists will be providing this inspiration and education. Coming from all over the world, these are the crème-de-la-crème of international creatives and have been hand-picked for each of the sessions! 

Today people enjoy snackable content, so each feature goes no longer than 10 minutes and sometimes is as short as 1 minute. Each will demonstrate craft, technique, and inspiration. The content will center on collections and show how these were created from concept to the final show.  We took our inspiration from Netflix and the popularity of mini-series to make a mini hair series of our own. Our two collection stories - World Class Color and Blonde Ambition are brought to life over four episodes each. The stories were built from initial concept in episode 1 to the planning and creation over episodes 2 and 3, and final reveal in episode 4. 

We will broadcast twice in one day to manage global participation. There will also be the option for playback so viewers can enjoy the highlights more than once. 

It is of course symbolic that the event itself is happening on April 25th – Hairstylist Appreciation Day. We certainly appreciate the hairdressing art and craft and will give back to the industry, supporting it with world class education on this day!

What does the theme We Create mean for Wella?

LS: We felt that ‘We Create’ name best expresses what we as a company want to stand for: help hairdressers to succeed in their lives by supporting them with world class innovation, industry leading education and being best possible partners in satisfying any of their clients’ needs. We do that through working very closely with the biggest names in the industry and co-creating many of your products and services with them. The WE signifies that unity, togetherness and inclusivity.

Creativity is at the heart of our industry and We Create event is inclusive to all craft expertise, globally. Our We Create artists come from all over the world, allowing different cultures to come together to create and inspire the industry. Collaborative creativity reflects the values of our brand, while connectedness with each other, with our customers and even their clients is our essence. You may have heard many times how Wella is a family.

And the ‘WE’ becomes even more significant as we open the invitation to all hairdressers whether they are our customers or not.

What are you hoping attendees walk away from the event with? 

LS: We want to reinforce what Wella hairdressers have known for years - that with 140 years of experience in hairdressing we offer partnership to drive business growth, innovative products and standard-setting education. With us you can be part of one of the largest and most engaged community of hairdressers in the world. 

At We Create we will be sharing all the knowledge and findings we have discovered working hand in hand with our salons during the lockdown. We have created thousands of unique business plans throughout the past year and we will be sharing our strongest learnings in the areas of clients’ virtual consultations and gaining more clients through social media, acceleration of salon sales, including the new service menu post lockdown, trading up salon services, staying close to your clients and team in the recovery and what it takes to become a sustainable salon, as well as many other salon business relevant findings.

This is the moment for us also to celebrate that we are strong advocates of sustainable creativity. We are so proud that as part of our ongoing journey towards becoming a more sustainable brand, Wella Professionals announces that it will shift the production of color tubes to 100% recycled aluminum, removing over 700 tons of virgin aluminum every year. On top moving to 96-100% Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR2) plastic caps, saving over 180 tons of virgin plastic per year, and 85% recycled cardboard packaging, supporting responsible management of the world’s forests. It is a joy to know that every beautiful Wella color service will now be more sustainable for the planet.

Whats one session youre most excited for?

LS: The program is crafted to be diverse and engaging and the sessions are deliberately planned to be short and sharp to make sure we are wise with time and attention of our audience.  Hopefully all will be exciting and interesting. Probably one of the bravest ideas was to broadcast the shows - Blonde Ambition and World class color. Each show was a collaboration of between 6 and 7 artists from all over the globe. Each team who collaborated on the two collections worked remotely from one central brief. We are so excited to see how this will translate into an eclectic global vision that celebrates the diversity in cultural interpretations born from the same theme.  

I personally get really excited by hair color – when I see the color becoming a real piece of art, when it is truly personal, has this powerful transformative potential, not only on the outside, but also on the inside. Once salons reopen, the clients will hunger for that expertise - Luxelights color service, which adds luxurious dimension, shimmer lights and soft shadows to your gray coverage, for a personalized and healthy-looking color, or Illuminage, which details and accentuates areas within the hair, framing the face and enhancing the perimeter, creating naturally blended highs and lows with a luminous result. I am looking forward to blonde transformations! Can’t choose one, to be honest, as each piece of content is unique and has been carefully selected with each of the hand-picked professionals.

There are so many different online seminars and courses on education.wella.com and we are soon launching our new Color Craft Specialist - the foundation knowledge hairdressers need in order to be a successful colorist. The course is colorists’ bible teaching you all you need to know to be a successful professional -  from understanding how to select the right color products for your essential color services to advancing your communication skills to help master consultation and analysis; from gaining confidence by overcoming common coloring barriers in salon to exploring your creativity and how to personalize to each and every salon client!

Staff Writer

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