beauty
186 VOGUE INDIA JUNE http://www.vogue.in
MAXABADIANSPOTLIGHTleading man
In the early 2000s, a casting agent
named Harry Josh had a side hustle
that made him the modelling world’s
Walter White. He operated an under-
ground hair lab out of his home, mak-
ing over his model friends by dyeing
them dark or cutting bangs. One
16-year-old complained that her hair
didn’t have that sun-kissed quality it
did while she was growing up on the
beaches of Brazil, so Josh coloured it
with a technique we now colloquially
know as ombré. That model was Gisele
Bündchen. It turbocharged Bünd-
chen’s career, making her the fashion
supernova we know today. Josh landed
a Vogue magazine spread and went vi-
ral before going viral was a thing.
Josh, however, was the opposite of
an overnight success. A child of Punja-
bi immigrants, he experienced overtracism in school. At home his parents
charted out predictably respectable ca-
reer paths for him. He felt an early pull
to the fashion world, a landscape far
removed from the suburban sprawl of
Vancouver where he was raised.
“There were no taste-makers of Indian
descent in the glamour world. It was
designed for and by white people con-
vincing the rest of the world what taste
is. It felt like a long shot but I had an
inner fi re I couldn’t shake.” He skipped
college to work at a hair salon, and af-
ter assisting a hairstylist he compiled a
portfolio with which he landed in Mi-
ami at the time of the Versace heyday.
That’s when his struggle began; he
spent a decade on the fringes of the
fashion industry, being told he wasn’t
good enough, and facing rejection time
after time. He slept on couches, trad-ing haircuts for food until he gave up
his dream of doing hair full-time and
found work as a casting agent.
Today, New York-based Josh has
been at the top of the hairstyling game
for close to two decades and is the lone
talent of Indian origin to be in that po-
sition. His days involve running his
fi ngers through the hair of the world’s
most beautiful women, including
Bündchen, Karlie Kloss and Deepika
Padukone. He’s best known for his vo-
luminous, sexy blowout, and he’s still
successfully convincing models to un-
dergo extreme makeovers, engineering
Shayk’s sleek Academy Awards bob
and Kloss’s recent short crop. He’s also
known for his line of luxury tools and
brushes, which in a stroke of market-
ing genius, he created in an unforget-
table mint-green hue.
Josh also has a personal mission he
fi nds validating: using his social media
reach to help followers combat feelings
of inadequacy in a world where self-
worth is increasingly measured by
likes. “In a business that’s incredibly
ephemeral, competitive and fl eeting,
having a stable, solid energy on the in-
side is the most important thing.” Via
Instagram, he tries to drive home the
idea that success manifests differently
for each of us and follows no set
timeline. If anyone knows that to be
true, it’s him. ■Karlie, Deepika and Priyanka entrust him with their
precious tresses. Harry Josh, one of the international
beauty scene’s major names, has had a roller-coaster
journey to the top. By Parizaad Khan Sethi