- And speaking of looking in the mirror.
- Ooh!
See, that doesn't even feel heavier than my actual hair.
[upbeat music]
[hairdryer blowing]
Hey Vogue, it's Rina Sawayama and--
- I'm Jake Gallagher.
- And today we are in beautiful Paris,
and we're gonna go to a Mugler dinner tonight.
So what are we doing?
- Today, we're gonna be doing an invisible ponytail.
[upbeat music]
- Where would you wear an invisible ponytail?
Because we do it for shows.
- I think it's a great way
to like change your look completely.
Like today, with your hair,
I'm gonna be sewing on blonde hair.
So your dark hair will be completely concealed inside it.
- Ooh.
[upbeat music]
- First of all,
I like to straighten the hair through,
just so we have a nice smooth base.
And I also like to use a heat protectant,
just to keep the hair healthy.
- I love the story of how we met.
- You know what, it was in 2015, I think.
- Wow, okay.
- So it's a long time ago. - So seven years ago.
I was starting out as a model,
and it was my first test shoot for the website,
of that agency.
And you were the hair stylist.
And did you say it was your first time?
- I think it was like one of the first shoots,
I ever really did.
- We've literally been working together since then.
It's amazing.
- After that you actually shot some press shots,
with the photographer.
- Didn't we have to pretend we were a couple.
- We were a couple.
- Yeah, in the editorial.
I dunno where that photo's gone.
I'm sure you can find it in the depths of the internet.
- So Rina, do you have any hair heroes?
- There is a thing called like hairography,
where it's like choreography, but with hair.
And that was all learned from Beyoncé.
Like Beyoncé is the queen. - Oh my God, of course.
- Yeah, like she just almost knows,
where the tip of her ponytail ends,
and can manipulate that to like land on her shoulder.
- [Jake] It's almost witchcraft.
- [Rina] Yeah, it really is.
[hairspray spraying]
[gentle upbeat music]
- So you're all ironed out now,
and we're ready to section you off,
and start the first ponytail.
The reason I section the hair off into two halves,
is to make it more manageable and tighter.
- It's helpful to tilt your head back, right?
- Yeah, so we can get all this bottom hair like nice,
and tight to the head.
'Cause sometimes if your head's not back and go up,
it ends up being baggy underneath,
and you get like that looseness there.
So what I like best about Rina is her creativity.
She's always up for trying like things,
that other artists definitely wouldn't do.
[Rina and Jake chuckling]
And I think with us, it's like,
we've been friends,
since the beginning of our careers, almost.
So I think we just sort of have an understanding.
We've grown together.
[hairspray spraying]
[hairdryer blowing]
[upbeat music]
So step three, I'm gonna create a center part,
and I'm gonna spray the roots with hairspray,
and pull it right back,
to join this hair to the ponytail I just created
at the back of the head.
I like to use the end of the pintail comb,
down the forehead to the center of the nose,
just to make sure it's all central.
So what I like to do now,
is just to spray the root on each side,
with a strong hairspray. [hairspray spraying]
- The earliest memory, actually,
I have of styling my hair as a kid,
was I had some hair straighteners,
and I used to put a chopstick in the middle of a straw,
and then twist my hair around it,
and then clamp the straighteners on top.
And I'd come out with these really tight curls.
And I would go to primary school,
with like Annie curls, but even tighter.
I think it was in my twenties,
when I first died my hair orange.
It was definitely a statement.
Having colored hair is a real commitment.
- [Jake] Commitment.
- Yeah, if I was wearing a white T-shirt,
while I was exercising,
it would just bleed orange.
It was really chaotic. [Jake laughing]
[upbeat music]
Worst haircut I've ever had.
Oh, it's my passport picture.
It's awful.
And I have to look at it every time I travel.
It was a bowl cut.
But a bowl cut doesn't work on me,
'cause as you can see,
I have two very strong cowlicks.
- Yeah [laughs]. - Yeah
So the bowl would just be broken, you know,
it'd be like split in the middle.
[Jake laughing]
So in 2024, my passport renews,
and I'll be getting the most fire snatched photo.
Maybe I'll ask you to do it.
- [Jake] She'll be having a glam before.
- Yeah, that's my worst one.
What about you?
- I've had too many.
But there's one in particular,
that at the time I thought was really great,
but my boyfriend, he was like,
"Oh it's horrible, we need to shave that hair off.
"It looks so bad."
And I was like, "It looks good, what are you on about?"
- When was this?
- [Jake] It was when I had like a weird fringe,
with like, it was like a short bowl fringe, like this.
- Yeah, yeah.
- And then this was shaved like Friar Tuck.
[Rina laughing]
And I thought it was so cool.
[upbeat music]
Step four is gonna be braiding the hair.
Just your typical three strand braid.
We braid the hair because we need a base for you to sew on.
Or if you're gonna use bobby pins,
pin the hair extensions onto.
And that's why I like to do it tight,
so you've got some grip.
[gentle upbeat music]
[hairspray spraying]
[gentle upbeat music]
[hairspray spraying]
[gentle upbeat music]
So this is step five,
where we're gonna conceal the braid.
People have different ways of doing it,
but like, normally you'd buy a pre-made ponytail,
that sort of clips on and wraps around.
- Right.
Those can get quite heavy if you're tryna like--
- [Jake] Yeah, it's like a lot of weight
on one part of the hair.
- But this is actually more evenly distributed down.
- Yeah, evenly distributed.
I'm gonna actually sew it in your hair,
but if you were to do this at home,
you can actually use bobby pins,
or you can use wig tape as well.
- So if I was to do bobby pins, like how would I put it in?
And what kind of bobby pins?
Do you like the wavy ones or the straight ones?
- Just like your standard, like bobby pin,
you can get from like a drugstore.
- Okay.
- What I would do, is I'd like pin it,
through the braid that way,
and then pin it the opposite way.
So it's sort of like locks in.
- Okay.
- But another way you can do this,
if you've got like an old set
of like clip-in hair extensions?
- [Rina] Oh yeah.
- You can use the clips from those,
and like wrap that around the braid.
- Growing up in the Western world as a Japanese person,
I was very opposed to being perceived in stereotypical way.
And that's something I've always been really careful of,
from the beginning of my career.
So even with styling,
makeup,
hair choices,
I've always been very careful, I would say.
See even since when I was modeling,
one time I was on this job,
they told me that it was a street style,
like Harajuku street style,
so you can do anything you like.
But when I got there,
they had prepared a kimono for me,
and it was for a tea company,
and they wanted me to serve tea the whole night.
And they like tricked me,
into looking the most Japanese that I can,
and serving tea for people on High Street Kensington,
or whatever.
And it was just really humiliating.
So, I'm always very conscious of how I represent myself,
and what it means for people like me,
or, you know,
whether it's like Asian American people,
or people who just wanna be seen as themselves,
and not like a caricature.
I think I've been really lucky,
with when I've entered this world,
and when I've started doing pop.
I've had a lot more freedom,
and having time outside of the industry,
has given me perspective,
into what kinda person I wanna be,
before what kind of pop star I wanna be, I guess.
So yeah, I try and be always listening to myself,
as to what I wanna do,
whether it's about the music,
or the songwriting,
or the production,
or whether it's about the hair,
or the makeup,
or the clothes.
[gentle upbeat music]
- I like to use a piece of hair from the hair we sewed in.
And I like to wrap it around the base of the ponytail,
using like a strong hairspray or a gel,
with a hairdryer to like lock it in place,
without having to use a bobby pin.
I like to just go around,
and like fill in any like, lighter bits,
around here where you can see scalp.
If someone's got finer hair around here,
I just like to go in with a powder,
like not too heavily.
Just to give it a bit of a shadow.
- 'Cause you can use like eyeshadow, as well right?
- You can use an eyeshadow,
you don't have to use anything like special,
but anything darker that match your head's hair color,
you can just--
- Have that Kardashian hairline,
where it's thick from root to end.
I'm so trusting of my team,
that I just barely think about it anymore.
And I just trust them to do the look,
and I'll probably look in the mirror,
and go like, "Yeah, cool, amazing, looks great."
And I don't have to worry about it.
- And speaking of looking in the mirror.
- Ooh!
- We have a ponytail.
- There she is!
Oh my God.
That's amazing.
See, that doesn't even feel heavier than my actual hair.
It is about weight distribution, isn't it?
- It's all about the weight distribution.
- So my hair is snatched.
Thank you so much, Jakey.
And thank you so much Vogue.
I would love to see how you get on with this.
So, like tag me,
tag Vogue,
if you do recreate the hairstyle,
and thank you so much for watching.
[Rina blowing kiss]
- Ooh! - Ooh!
[Rina and Jake laughing]
- Bye Vogue. - Bye Vogue.
[gentle upbeat music]
- [Rina] Into the abyss.
[gentle upbeat music]