SUSAN ROCCO, 49, an interior designer, has seen the same hairdresser in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., since she was 16. “I felt like I’d be cheating on her to go anywhere else,” she said.
But Ted Gibson — known for his makeovers on TLC’s “What Not to Wear” —
is the kind of celebrity hairdresser that has Mrs. Rocco, a wife of 30
years, excited to cheat. “I wanted a special experience, because I’m
frustrated with my hair at this point in my life,” said Mrs. Rocco, who
has an auburn bob and typically pays $100 for cut and color. “I
want to look my best, short of plastic surgery, and do something to
update my look, and have a professional look at my hair with a fresh set
of eyes.”
Armand Rocco, her husband and an owner of the Kitchenworks, their
custom-cabinet business, doesn’t mind paying $950 to have his wife be
one of the first shorn by Mr. Gibson himself at his new salon in the W
hotel in Fort Lauderdale later this month. “I didn’t think about it as
$950 for a haircut,” he said. “If you think of it that way, it’s a lot
of money, but if you think about it as a very unique gift to give
someone, then it’s worth it.”
A late bloomer who started in the fashion business at 33 after helping
to develop Aveda products, Mr. Gibson, 46, is an image-maker, known for
styling the tresses of rising-star celebrities like Ashley Greene of
“Twilight” fame, Mila Kunis of “Black Swan” and Jessica Chastain,
recently nominated for best supporting actress for “The Help.” A calming
presence who doles out compliments as he touches his clients’ hair, he
has done bodacious looks for more than 15 magazine covers in the past
year or so, including Lucky, BlackBook, Essence, Playboy and InStyle
Hair.
Mr. Gibson, 6-foot-3, built and still apple-cheeked thanks to well-placed Sculptra injections, has all the trappings of a star hairdresser:
a namesake line of shampoos tailored to hair colors like “captivating
copper”; backstage gigs coiffing for Lela Rose, among others at New York Fashion Week;
and now two luxurious but unpretentious salons, including the Manhattan
original in the Flatiron district. Since August, Mr. Gibson — a
relentless self-promoter on Facebook and Twitter (13,800 tweets and
counting) — has been campaigning on both sites to get the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to award an Oscar for hair, so hairdressers might at last get their due.
His growing profile is all the more remarkable given his roots. “If you
think about all the people who wanted to do this before me, they have
been straight, white with an accent — Vidal Sassoon, Frédéric Fekkai,
John Freida and Horst Rechelbacher,” said Mr. Gibson, who favors pink
shirts and the über-masculine scent Le Labo Santal 33. “It’s new
territory. It’s scary at one point, and exciting at the other.”
That a gay black man is the face of the Ted Gibson brand still surprises
some. When he’s part of an entourage, “people think I’m the bodyguard
half the time,” he said. “Then they realize, oh, you have a brush in
your pocket or you have a can of hairspray.” Those who’ve never met him
or seen his picture often make assumptions: “People always think I’m a
white Englishman,” he said.
He grew up as an Army brat, whose father, an operating room technician,
now deceased, and his mother, a cafeteria worker, eventually settled in
Killeen, Tex. There, he played football and raised cattle for 4-H. At
15, he came out to his unsuspecting parents. “I just knew I needed to be
who I was,” he said over egg-white omelets on the deck of Steak 954 at
the W hotel in Fort Lauderdale. “It was tough.”
MR. GIBSON’S career trajectory has surprised his mother, Beatrice, 81.
“I didn’t think he would get as far as he is now,” she confessed. “He
was so shy.”
No more. On a blustery Tuesday evening, inside the cozy West Village
apartment Mr. Gibson shares with Jason Backe, the celebrity colorist
with whom he builds his brand and his life (and Spencer, their Norwich
terrier), the couple is tussling over who came up with the phrase
“mixing up the magic.” It’s become a catchphrase of Mr. Gibson’s on
“What Not to Wear,” which they watched that night while eating
Middle-Eastern takeout, followed by homemade brownies. But Mr. Backe
contends he coined it. “I could have invented the light bulb, and no one
would believe me!” Mr. Backe exclaimed, joking.
Their merry cattiness spilled onto Twitter as they sat, smartphones in
hand, in front of the flat-screen above their working fireplace, which
Spencer is snoozing next to. After @tedgibson tweeted, “i am going to be
#mixingupthemagic in a few minutes xo,” @JasonHueman (as in Jason the
colorist) retweeted him and then commented, “#rude #phrasestealer.”
 |
Barbara P. Fernandez for The New York Times
Mr. Gibson, right, and his partner and head colorist, Jason Backe, left, holding their dog Spencer. |
The feisty couple volleys a lot of zingers, as well as praise, back and
forth. They have been together 18 years, had a commitment ceremony after
2 years and have co-owned their Manhattan salon for 8 years, with Mr.
Gibson as the creative force, and Mr. Backe, 43, as the pragmatist who
makes ideas happen.
At lunch at A Voce on Madison Avenue, Mr. Gibson confided that he was
thinking of raising the price of his haircuts to $1,500. Mr. Backe
(pronounced BAH-key) mimed popping a pill and said, “And I take a
Klonopin.” (By contrast, a cut with a Gibson stylist costs $75 to $200.)
At times, their banter might seem worthy of a reality-TV show. Although
they did appear on “The Real Housewives of D.C.” back when they had a
licensed salon in the area, a show isn’t in the works. They remain
optimistic, though, and have even alerted their friends near their
upstate getaway — they call them their Catskills Queens — that “they
will be our second-string cast of characters,” said Mr. Backe, adding
his own reality check to lower expectations: The networks “are not ready
for an interracial gay couple on TV.”
In an interview, Mrs. Gibson admitted it took time to become comfortable
with her son’s being gay. “You don’t want that to happen, but nowadays
you see it all the time, two girls or two boys, and young, too,” she
said. She recounted the night more than 30 years ago when her son told
them. “Of course, his daddy didn’t like it so well. But I talked to
him.”
She talks to her son daily, and sometimes they pray together. “A lot of
parents don’t speak to their kids” after learning they are gay, she
said. “I think that’s awful.”
Mr. Gibson, when asked about his mother’s feelings about his sexuality,
grew quiet, and tearful. “She still denies that I told her,” he said.
“She still has this thing that she didn’t hear me say it. That’s classic
Beatrice Gibson. She’s a strong woman. She was married to a military
husband, and she had to be strong.”
ON “What Not To Wear,” Mr. Gibson stands out because of his daring
choices. He dyed an Asian waif’s rose-highlighted stringy hair fuchsia and gave
her blunt bangs, a makeover that brought 2,000 new fans to the show’s
Facebook page, said Stephanie Eno, the senior director of production for
TLC. “His demeanor brings a calm, and his cachet builds that instant
trust,” she added.
On set on Dec. 15, Mr. Gibson tried to coax Frances Ruiz, a young-adult novelist, to share why, at 28, she still had never been kissed.
After asking her to name her favorite thing about herself (her eyes), he
transformed Ms. Ruiz’s brown shoulder-length hair into an asymmetrical
bob in a red hue that made her blue eyes pop and flattered her neckline.
“It’s not just about the hair,” Maggie Zeltner, the supervising
producer, said between takes. “It’s about the why. Ted’s good at getting
to the why.”
Sounding Oprah-esque, Mr. Gibson asked Ms. Ruiz, “What is it that’s hindering you from being your greater self?”
“I just don’t want to cry on TV,” she said.
“Why?” he persisted.
Before her tears started, Ms. Ruiz managed to stammer, “It’s embarrassing.”
“You are an amazing human being,” he said. “What’s wrong with showing the world that?”
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