Salon owner takes talents from the Coast to New York Fashion Week

GULFPORT, Miss. (WLOX) – National Hair Day is on October 1st, and one coastal hairstylist is taking her talents all the way to New York Fashion Week.

“I’ve wanted to do hair since I was super little,” said Erin Burgess, owner of Brushes Salon in Gulfport. “I think that had a lot to do with having a cleft lip when I was born. I definitely wanted to make people feel beautiful inside and out.”

Burgess went to cosmetology school directly out of high school, knowing that her passion was hair.

Upon graduation, she immediately went into a salon. However, owning her own shop was the dream. 6 years ago, the stars aligned.

“I’ve always wanted to just create an aesthetically pleasing place where really awesome colorful creative people could come together and make pretty hair and I feel like we definitely do that here,” she explained.

Now, Burgess is taking the curlers and hair color to New York, styling in one of the world’s four major fashion weeks.

“A few years back at a hair show, we made a friend Alyssa Blair Addison. She had recently reached out asking me if that would be something I would be interested in,” she recalled. “And then she has selected a team together and I’m just grateful she asked me.”

The best part about being a stylist is the impact her entire shop makes on everyone who walks in and out their doors.

“Oh, I love just seeing the inner confidence. ‘The glow,’ I call it. It’s like they can come in pretty dim I mean you know and I’m not talking about just their appearance. It could be sadness. It could be anything because this isn’t just about doing hair it’s ‘hairapy’ that’s what I call it. They come in and maybe they’re feeling a little off and want to feel better about themselves and then between the color the conversation the new haircut by the end of it they’re literally I feel like glowing at our doors. So that’s, I mean, my last name was Glisten so, you know, gotta make them shine.”

Burgess says she can’t wait to share more about her shop and the women who work there in New York and bring what she learned back to the coast.

While she doesn’t fully know what to expect, she’s ready for the fast-paced hustle and bustle of New York Fashion Week.

Photojournalist: Michael Rodgers

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