Dicksum Low’s work is beyond just hair—it’s art. He has created his own signature style that goes beyond anyone’s imagination. The Malaysian Creative Director of A Cut Above Group of Salons, a distinguished group of salons in Malaysia, bringing 3D to life and transforming the architecture of hair with a focus on color and style. His work is simply avant-garde at its finest. His talent has even gotten him nominations, with the recent being
at the International Hair Dressing Awards 2021 for Best International Avant-Garde Collection for his Deconstructivism work, his second time being nominated.
Dicksum has made a name for himself as a talented hairstylist and colourist on a global scale. Here’s what you need to know about the avant-garde hairdresser shaping the industry with his avante-garde, aesthetic creation:
MOTIONISM
Selamat Low! Can you share with our readers when you first discovered your passion for hair and knew that it was the path for you? Walk us through the beginning of your journey.
Honestly, I am a cartoonist and into drawing since early age. I always thought that I will pursue the career of being either cartoonist or graphic designer, but unfortunately the fees for the training academy is too much and I didn’t wish to burden my family. There’s one day that I discovered in a magazine that hair could be done in an avant-garde way. And instantly, I felt so inspired as never in my life. I thought I could express creativity with hair too and most importantly the training fees is very affordable to my family. This is how I started my journey.
Do you remember the first time you cut and styled someone’s hair? How did you felt at the time and how do you think you’ve developed as a stylist since then? And what did it mean for you on a personal and professional level?
I can remember the guys clearly as it feels so electrifying with the pair of scissors in my hand, knowing exactly what to do with the overall composition. From that point of my life I knew I have chosen the right career.
The construction process of a hair creation takes many days or months to complete. What is the time frame and what adhesive/fabrics, if any, and products do you use to maintain on the hair?
Personally I hated time frame so much that I feel like it’s suppressing my creativity. A lot of my work is done throughout the year until it reached my personal satisfaction before I released it. With this way I felt my artwork is more meaningful as I remembered the story of my life throughout the production time. Of course to make sure the style stay over time UHU glue and tons of hairspray is my best friends.
Tell us more about your creative process on your latest collection Motionism. Can you describe the inspiration behind this?
Motionism is designed for my nomination for the international hairdressing award for the international hairdresser of the year category. The creative process includes a lot of brainstorming on how I conceptualize the color, styling, inspiration and hair into a different look every single photo but when everything puzzled together. It completed the whole themes and became a collection that show cases versatility. That’s the whole vision and concept of motionism. I spend a big chunk of times to conceptualizing it. Motionism is inspired by motion of moment that capture my eye and imagination along my life from, travels, environments, various artist/designers, nightmare, insomnia. It’s all about my thoughts that fills with imagination and always wish certain motion of moment to freeze in gravity and be appreciated and touchable.
DECONSTRUCTIVISM
Your work is undeniably inspired by avant-garde, bringing 3D to life and creating looks that transform the architecture of hair. What initially drew your attention to this specific style and how do you interpret it in your work?
Thanks to all the hair heroes such as Trevor Sorbie, Anthony Mascolo, Angelo Seminara and many more who’ve constantly push the boundaries of hair, they made me realize that I could interpret anything I can thinks of into hair and photography.
The construction process of a hair creation takes many days or months to complete. What is the time frame and what adhesive/fabrics, if any, and products do you use to maintain on the hair?
Personally I hated time frame so much that I feel like it’s suppressing my creativity. A lot of my work is done throughout the year until it reached my personal satisfaction before I released it. With this way I felt my artwork is more meaningful as I remembered the story of my life throughout the production time. Of course to make sure the style stay over time UHU glue and tons of hairspray is my best friends.
<Deconstructivism>
“the biggest challenge when creating the final image would be finding the right balance”
How do you translate your ideas/ vision into hair? How much of the process is a collaboration and how much comes from you?
I would spend most of my time visualizing than the actual moulding of hair because I need the complete total look to be perfect in my mind before I can start working on how to interpret it into hair. I spend a lot of time creating numerous mood board and force myself to nailed it into a final vision. It helps me finalize the hair design better as sometimes I tends to have too much ideas.I would say I pretty much conceptualize everything myself but still I need to thanks to the team. Photographer Mr Aaron Lee of lens work production who relentlessly trying to help me into making my story and vision come trues, Faevien Yee,for amazing fashion design, Tiffany for makeup and my assistant Ehsmond and Mei for trusting my vision.
The hardest part of any creation is to visualize what it is you are trying to achieve. What’s the biggest challenge and path taken when creating the final image?
Yes you are right but I have to be thankful that I am gifted in the part of visualizing. I did not take it for granted. I would constantly challenge myself into visualizing more complicated and impossible combination to achieve something out of the box. To me the biggest challenge when creating the final image would be finding the right balance, most of the time. I tend to have too much ideas and trying to squeeze in everything into one.
They say you need to have an inspiration or a passion in order to do what you love. Where do you predominately get your inspiration from and what has been your most challenging collection/style to make Why?
I would say everything related to art is my passion, especially to transfer emotion into art. I would get my inspiration mostly from my life story and life experience growing up, as I believe everyone journey of growing up in different stages of life help to shape the artistic flair internally and that’s how it makes everyone special. If you realized and thinks back to why you love certain look, fashion, color, shape, movement, architecture etc …. it has something to tell about when you are still a toddler and what have you been exposed to, emotionally, visually and mentally. My most challenging collection would be motionism because I always visualizing myself as an avant-garde hairdresser. I would like to challenge myself to do something less avant-garde that promotes simplicity, believable and more visually pleasing yet stunning. Till now, I’m not sure whether I had achieved it, but at least I’m satisfied with the looks that I created.
“I would describe my signature style as original, eccentric and unconventional”
Who would be your ideal person to style, color or give a complete change, who would it be and why?
Donald Trump perhaps, with his signature style I can’t wait to see what I could deconstruct it into.
Tell us more about you as an artist and how your work has changed during this time of self-reflection?
As an artist, I am willing to do something that might not work and constantly challenge myself to thinks out of box, and I think comparison naturally kills creativity ,that is why my focused every year is to do better than myself last year making myself as a competitor instead of other. While during this time of self-reflection, I learned to be more positive and focused. It did not change much with my works though.
Are you working on any new collection at the moment? Are you finding it hard to brainstorm ideas during this unfortunate time?
I am constantly working with new collection 24/7 – never stop – as I like to spend enough time on each look. I would re-look into it after couple of months to ensure the look can really pass my personal satisfactory with the current unfortunate time it did not affected me too much as I am a very focus person and will only focused on things that I can control rather than things that I can’t.
What is the biggest challenge in your job especially during the pandemic? How do you manage this challenge and reach out to your clients/followers?
The biggest challenge during the time of pandemic with work would be the cancellation of a lot of yearly main event and sponsor, and I miss the platform to unleash my creativity. In another way I am switching my activity more on my social media platforms to share love and positivity via online.
Last word to all the up and coming hairdresser or even artist out there, be unique and be yourself. Don’t try to copy or imitate what everybody else is doing because the industry needed someone who has an individual unique point of view.
DECONSTUCTIVISM
