This year’s International Visionary Award saw an unprecedented number of entries from over 50 countries, in the 3 categories: Cut & Colour, Avante-Garde & Mens.

The International Visionary Award was created by Alternative Hair President Anthony Mascolo to find new talent, as well as giving a wider number of hairdressers, from across the globe, the opportunity to appear on stage as part of the enduring Alternative Hair Show.

Anthony Mascolo who headed the panel of judges, said: “Every year the quality of the work and the reach of entries gets more and more impressive. It’s been particularly exciting to see how many entries we’ve received from countries like Taiwan, Australia, the USA, Russia, Japan, Tel Aviv, Canada, Mexico as well as just about every European country and of course, the UK.”

It’s been a really tough job to choose the finalists who will appear live on-stage at the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday on October 16th 2016. The finalists from each category will be launched on Alternative Hair’s digital platforms early September.

Now in its 34th year, the Alternative Hair Charitable Foundation raises money to support fundamental Leukaemia research and to date has raised in excess of £9.5 Million towards successful research into childhood Leukaemia.

For information and tickets for this year’s Show, entitled Odyssey, please visit: www.alternativehair.org

Finalists:

Avant Garde: Ahkim Anthony Tan (Australia) – Ayhan Onluel (Turkey) – Amanda Whittome (Ireland) – Dallant Flint (USA) – Dylan Jack McConnachie (UK) – Tsai Chia Ming (Taiwan) – Shelly Pengilly  (UK) – Yeh Li Wei (Taiwan) – Laura McLeod (Australia) – Emmanuel Estaban (UK) – Sylvestre Finold (UK) – Jonas Wixner (Sweden) – Miharu Kobayashi (Japan) – Damian Witkowski (Poland) – Nadia Semanic (Australia) – Hsieh Ching Shen (Taiwan) – Chika Isaji (Japan) – Zhlinskiy Sergey (Russia)

Cut and Colour:

Marese Sweeney (Ireland) – Rafael Rubin (Tel Aviv) – Huseyin Alkan (Turkey) – Eba Stromblad (Sweden) – Nuru Perkins (UK) – Sayaka Mawatari (Japan) – Haus Lee (Taiwan) – Ashleigh Hodges (UK) – Karoliina Saunders (UK) – Pino Troncone (Italy) – Marta Robak (Poland) – Luigi Martini (Italy) – Metod Tasic (Slovenia) – Mirko Schioppa (Italy) – Paulina Truong (Canada) – Avram Golemechkov (Bulgaria)

Mens:

Niall Bennett (Ireland) – Yuki Kano (Australia) – Ari Koponen (Sweden) – Carlos Valiate Esaiva (Spain) – Joel McCauley (UK) – Giovanni Napolitano (Italy) – Wilo Rojas (Italy) – Robert Briscolini (Italy) – Chi Tai Liu (Taiwan) – Lin Yi Siou (Taiwan) – Sal Misseri (USA) – Elias Habibson (Sweden) – Iva Nanchen (Switzerland) – Locher Jeremie (Switzerland) – Alessandro Santi (Italy)