Asheville is on the national radar for food, beer, music, happiness, hippiness — and now hair.
Local hairstylist Katie Manselle was featured in this month’s American Salon magazine, in its Young American hairstylist spotlight segment, which highlighs a different stylist from around the country each month on their styles, training, beauty must-haves and aspirations.
“I had been talking to the editor and sent them images of a photo shoot I had done,” Manselle explains. “She said, ‘We love them!’ and published a few.”
Manselle was then contacted by the magazine for the interview and full-page feature in the November issue.
The New York City-based magazine, which has 104,000 national subscribers, spotlights only one hairstylist per month, so Manselle said she feels honored to represent Asheville and local salon Ananda West for a national audience. According to the magazine’s 2014 editorial calendar, American Salon reaches an audience of roughly 800,000 per month through readership at 94,000 salon businesses across the country.
“American Salon is one of the top three hair-industry magazines in the nation,” she says. “And now they have a picture of Ananda West in there. It’s just a great thing that [Asheville is] now on the map for even hairstyles.”
While several small photos accompanied her spotlight in the November issue, Manselle explains that as a part of the feature, they will run a few full-sized photos of her work in an upcoming issue, in either December or January.
“To be featured in a national publication is an honor,” Manselle says. “It is humbling and inspiring all at once. As a stylist I seek to really discover how to draw out each of my clients unique beauty—whether it be color, cutting or styling. My passion is in making a woman’s hair exude her beauty,” she continues. “I want my clients to feel like a million bucks. My clients know we go from glory to glory — that is, we will never ‘arrive.’ Each time we meet we will change our course ever-so-slightly to seek an even more beautiful outcome.”
Manselle works part-time at Ananda West and part-time freelancing on other styling projects, such as her work with Asheville Indie Weddings. She was one of 15 hairstylists chosen to be backstage at Charleston Fashion Week in March, working on collections by Christian Siriano, Anne Barge and Cynthia Rowley.
Manselle’s work can be found on her website at KatieMHair.com.
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