In February, the two opened Starring by Ted Gibson on South La Brea Avenue.
They call it a smart salon. The space doesn’t have normal chair-and-mirror stations but rather something they are calling “salon clouds,” softly rounded room dividers designed by Francisco Gonzalez-Pulido that are strangely suggestive of a vaginal canal. The lighting inside the clouds, powered by Amazon’s Alexa, can be changed among soft light that resembles “sunrise,” “daylight,” “sunset,” “twilight” and “moonlight” to see your hair in different settings Or, you can have it violet or orange or any color of the rainbow. I asked Alexa to cycle through all the settings. My favorite was the green light, which indicated that it represented strength. The whole thing is made for selfies, which are encouraged. Written on the mirror in lipstick was #starringhair, the desired hashtag. On a sign next to the mirror, you are reminded that you can also play Jeopardy or Would You Rather via Alexa. Even the window displays and espresso machine are shoppable via SmileCodes, on the Amazon app. A salon news release called it “Barneys meets ‘Black Mirror.’”