“Zero-gravity
ballet is another
thing I would
love to do,” says
Hollander
Negin Mirsalehi’s
success follows a
familiar digital-age trajectory: Dutch
graduate student delays her
business degree to start style blog;
posts #ootds; gets thousands
of likes and millions of followers;
secures sponsorships from brands
such as Gucci and Christian Dior.
So when the 30-year-old launched
Gisou—her honey-based hair-care
line that debuted in 2015 in response
to frequent comments about her
hip-grazing ombré highlights—it
challenges that come with creating
effective shampoos, conditioners,
and styling aids that go beyond social
media–friendly packaging. Loaded
with honey from her father’s bee farm
and based on a formula from her
mother, who became a hairstylist in
the Netherlands after leaving Iran
following the revolution, the line’s
best-selling hair oil was not an
immediate hit. “It took six months for
people to start believing in us,” she
reveals. But trying is believing with
Gisou, which now boasts 10 products,
including a propolis-infused Polishing
Primer that arrived this summer via a
Paris pop-up at Galeries Lafayette,
wherein Mirsalehi installed her own
hives on the roof to promote the
importance of pollinators. A similar
installation took place during New
York Fashion Week—a testament to
the brand’s growth potential.
Mirsalehi will close her first round of
series A investment by the end of
the year, which should help with
her next endeavor: leveraging the
reparative benefits of royal jelly. “The
authenticity of our story,” she says, “is
what sets us apart.”—CELIA ELLENBERG
Hive Mentality
goes from influencer to beauty boss.
concludes, the staff will be well versed in this kind of
crisis choreography, disaster preparedness in the extreme.
A Los Angeles native, Hollander got a fortuitous
introduction to dance via the storied Balanchine muse
Yvonne Mounsey, who founded a prestigious local
ballet school. (Her parents weren’t aware of Mounsey’s
reputation at the time and just signed her up for the most
convenient classes.) “I didn’t even know what kind of gift
this was,” the 33-year-old artist recalls of
the direct download from “Mr. B.” Later
on, at Barnard, courses in cultural
anthropology and architecture opened up
new modes to grapple with space and
time and the body. “My thesis was about
tracking the evolution of gesture and the
changes to our corporeal vocabulary due to
the influx of new technology,” she says,
alluding to downward-craned necks and
smartphone swipes. (She also understands more classical
forms of repetitive motion, having spent two years with a
production of Swan Lake.)
When we speak, Hollander has just returned from
Helsinki, where she staged a performance based on that
city’s air-traffic control; this winter, an installation
of headlights and brake lights pulsing in sync with
a nearby traffic signal opens at New York’s Bortolami
gallery. It’s this real-world awareness that has made
Hollander an appealing collaborator for filmmakers.
As the choreographer for Jordan Peele’s Us, she used the
characters’ double personae to shepherd distinct patterns
of movement. (Lupita Nyong’o’s underground alter
ego skittered “like a Pac-Man meets a cockroach with a
book on her head,” Hollander said after the film debuted
in March.) And she poured her Nutcracker know-how
into the climactic flashback scene: one dancer pirouetting
onstage, the other smashing into walls below.
If there’s a dystopian streak in the
choreographer’s work, her longtime
creative coconspirator, Celia Hollander—
composer, sound artist, and younger
sister—shrugs it off. “There’s a type
of existential absurdist humor that is also
optimistic somehow,” Celia suggests.
(The sisters’ next joint effort, in November,
will be a commission for Benjamin
Millepied’s L.A. Dance Project—
Madeline’s first in a traditional theater.) And Hollander
is an optimist, finding opportunities for creation
amid chaos, with an eye to ever-expanding frontiers.
“I’ve been going to a lot of shuttle launches, trying to
figure out how to become an astronaut without
having to go through the whole doctoral process,” she
says with a grin. “Zero-gravity ballet, hopefully in the
International Space Station, is another thing I would
love to do. That project,” she adds brightly, “is TBD.”
—lau r a regensdorf
BEAUTY
STICKY SITUATION
A SEVENTH-GENERATION BEEKEEPER, MIRSALEHI WILL
ADD RESTORATIVE ROYAL JELLY TO AN INGREDIENT
LINEUP THAT INCLUDES TEXTURIZING PROPOLIS AND
SMOOTHING HONEY. MODEL ELZA LUIJENDIJK,
PHOTOGRAPHED BY TIM WALKER FOR VOGUE, 2013.
VLIFE
142 OCTOBER 2019 VOGUE.COM
ANTAGAIN/GETTY IMAGES
