Feather Extensions:

This Summer’s Fashion Statement

By Nancy K. Crevier

“I think the fad started with Steven Tyler on American Idol,” said hair stylist and owner Diane Harty of Robert Anthony Salon on Church Hill Road. She was talking about the trend for feather hair extensions. “I first heard of it early last spring when a rep came in and said, ‘You have to get with it! Everyone wants these feathers!’ But I felt like we had mostly older clients who wouldn’t be interested in them. Then,” said Ms Harty, “young girls started calling about them, so we started stocking them. I had to laugh how excited Victoria was when she blew in here, begging me to put these feathers in her hair,” said Ms Harty.

Victoria Picerno, 18, was inspired by friends home from college on spring break. “I just thought they were so great. They got me and my friends into [the feather fad],” said Victoria. Tuesday, June 28, Victoria was back at Robert Anthony Salon with friends Evelyn Fahey, 18, and Shaylyn Fahey, 13, for more feathers in her tresses. Another client, said Ms Harty, had returned three times in one day for additional feathers, the previous weekend.

“It’s a way for conservative kids to be a little wild,” she said.

The 10- to 12-inch-long narrow feathers come in bright neon colors of green, yellow, blue, magenta, and orange, shades of plum, purple, and red, and natural colors of tan, brown, white, and the “grizzly,” a banded tan and black or white and black feather. Feather hair extensions are a way to add some fun and color to hair without damaging the hair or chemically treating it, so parents are more apt to say ‘Yes’ to feathers in the hair, Ms Harty said. “And it’s really exciting for me. It’s a change from the cut and color, cut and color I usually do,” she added.

The process takes only seconds per feather. For a single feather, clients select from dozens of natural or dyed rooster feathers that the salon purchases through Feather Locks, the main supplier in the fashion industry. Then a few fine strands of hair are threaded through a small bead pushed close to the scalp, using a special hook. The fine quill of the feather is inserted into the bead and the whole thing is tightly clamped shut with a pair of needle-nose pliers. More than one feather can be inserted into a bead, or additional beads can be attached with other feathers.

“The great thing is, the feathers stay in for over a month. They are treated just like hair, so they don’t have to be removed for washing or blow drying or anything,” said Ms Harty. At a cost of $15 a feather, it is a fad that is affordable for many teens, too, she added.

The salon is servicing 10 to 12 clients a day who want feather hair extensions, and she is hopeful that the fashion will stick around for a while. “We get the younger generation in now, so that’s good for business,” Ms Harty said. To her surprise, older clients are asking for the feathers now, too. Her mother, also a partner, has shorter feather extensions in her hair. “It’s kind of like back in the 70s,” said Ms Harty’s mother, “but then, we clipped the feathers into our hair. This is a lot of fun.”

June Debenedetto, the third generation of the family at Robert Anthony Salon and Ms Harty’s grandmother, added, “This is better than those dreadlocks, and better than painting the hair!”

Salon Michele, located next to Dunkin’ Donuts in the Big Y Plaza on Queen Street, and Ricci’s Salon on South Main Street are two more local salons that are in on the feather action.

“We had two clients come in this spring who had gotten feathers put into their hair somewhere else, and asked it we could get feathers, too. It was a new product line for us,” said Katherine O’Connell, the manager at Salon Michele. The salon is a certified Feather Locks salon now, meaning they are registered with the supplier and have received instructions, tools, and feathers from that company only. All of the hair stylists at Salon Michele are certified to weave feathers into hair, she said.

“We get six to seven calls a day, and maybe four walk-ins a day, looking for feathers in the hair,” said Ms O’Connell. “The number keeps going up as the word spreads,” she said.

“Some of the girls get just a couple of feathers, and some want a lot,” said stylist Ali Carrier. “It’s the fastest ever process, and doesn’t harm the hair at all,” she said. She does caution clients not to pull on the bead when brushing or combing their hair. “It feels so natural, girls forget that they have them in,” said Ms Carrier. Popping out the bead means that it will have to be replaced.

Because the economy has caused clients to cut back on hair treatments or delay haircuts, the feather fad has been a boost to business, said both Ms O’Connell and Ms Carrier. “This is helpful to get the younger clients into the shop,” Ms Carrier said.

Ricci’s Salon and Spa owner Daniel Riccio agreed with Ms Harty that the feather trend took off thanks to Steven Tyler, as well as Johnny Depp’s dapper pirate Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. The trend also feeds into the popular “hippie style” of free-flowing “beachy” hair, bell-bottoms, and peasant blouses that are back on the scene, said Mr Riccio.

“Before the feather thing started, we were doing tinsel hair extensions. But anything synthetic can shrivel up or melt onto hair when overheated,” he said. “When the feathers became an option, they were much more popular, because whatever you do to hair, you can do to feathers,” Mr Riccio said.

Ricci’s Salon carries an array of colors, but it is the natural black and white “grizzly” feather that is most popular with clients, he said. “It stands out in almost any color of hair,” Mr Riccio said.

“It’s a huge summer thing this year,” said Ricci’s Salon stylist Taylor Burke, whom Mr Riccio said has been instrumental in the extension work, and who is in charge of ordering feather stock for the salon. “I was seeing the feathers in the hair on television and then I put some in my hair. I had three clients ask about them in one day. Once we started getting them in, they started selling like crazy,” she said.

The salon is going through nearly a box of 50 feathers a week, Mr Riccio said. “Fads usually hang on for about three months. This one will probably go strong through the summer,” he said, “but you never know.”

“It’s really fun,” said Ms Burke, “and nice to have a little color without chemically coloring the hair. I’ve put feathers in clients from 4 years of age to a 60-year-old client, who went out of here beaming.”

Ruffled Feathers

Not everyone is beaming over the feather hair extension fad, though. The fashion industry is crossing lines with some unhappy fishermen.

The popular feathers come from roosters that are specially bred to produce the flexible, long, silky feathers, and until this recent fad, were grown to supply fly fishermen, who craft artful “flies” from strands of the feathers. With the fashion industry snapping up the feathers from growers, stores that normally stock feathers for fishermen are unable to do so.

“No one in the fishing world can get the feathers right now,” said Jan Newman of Newtown Bait & Tackle on South Main Street. “Our fly fishing expert, Bobby Graff, has his own stock. It’s craziness, and there is a definite shortage now [of feathers used for tying flies],” she said. “Every time girls walk in and ask for feathers, we think, ‘Here we go again.’”

Charlie Collins of Collins Hackle Farm in upstate New York said Wednesday, June 29, that the saddle hackle feathers he sells are basically gone. Mr Collins considers his rooster farm to be a small one, harvesting just 4,500 birds this year. A large grower will harvest tens of thousands of birds, or more, each year, he said.

“I didn’t even hear about this [feather hair extension fad] until last November when I was at a show,” Mr Collins said. Then at another show the end of January, he was approached by three or four people for the hair industry interested in his rooster feathers. “Then, within the week the calls started, and there hasn’t been a day that goes by that my phone doesn’t ring with people wanting feathers,” said Mr Collins, who has been raising roosters for feathers that supply fly fishermen and stores for more than 30 years.

 Mr Collins is trying to save some of the prized feathers for his loyal customers, though, he said, rather than sell to fashion suppliers. “I don’t want to be known as a hair dresser. I raise birds for fishermen,” he declared.

Nor does Mr Collins pander to the fashion industry. While some growers may separate the neck, which encompasses the comb of the rooster to the shoulder and all of the feathers on it, from the saddle, which are the desirable fashion feathers that grow from the bird’s shoulder to waist, he does not. He sells only the neck of his roosters, and gives away the saddle with it.

What really raises this rooster farmer’s hackles, though, is that while he is striving to hang on to his supply for longtime customers, some suppliers are manipulating the fad to their advantage. “I’m disgusted with people in the fly fishing industry who are buying from me just to make a buck by reselling [the feathers] online for several times what I sold them for, and for what they usually go for,” he said.

The demand for the “grizzlies,” a long, striped feather, and for the white feathers, which can then be dyed any color, has been great, Mr Collins said. He knows they are not all going to be turned into the artfully crafted feather bugs that drift on the surface of the water, teasing trout.

Growing Feathers

It takes a year for the genetically engineered roosters to grow a full saddle of elegant and valued feathers, and the harvest is seasonal. When this year’s supply is gone, “there won’t be anymore until the large farms start harvesting in the fall,” Mr Collins said. As a small farmer, and because he thinks this fad will fade, he does not plan to increase his flock for next year to supply the hair industry. “I’m way too small to play in this hair industry,” he said. He has increased his brown flocks, however, so that fly tiers will have some feathers for the remainder of the year.

National news has focused on the frustrations of fly fishermen vs the fashion industry, but some fishermen are taking the fad in stride. Jim Turecek, who will speak on the art of fly fishing at the C.H. Booth Library July 15, is not finding feathers hard to get. “My usual suppliers have them on hand,” said Mr Turecek, of Ansonia, who teaches fly fishing, as well as enjoys the sport himself. “I can get the long saddle hackle feathers. You do have to be willing to look around for different suppliers, but they seem to have plenty,” he said. “I’ve got to imagine the fashion industry is taking away some of the product, but personally, I haven’t found it to be a problem,” said Mr Turecek.

Salon Michel hairstylist Ali Carrier has the inside scoop on the controversy, too. Her father is a recreational fly fisherman, and ties his own flies.

“He says it is hard to find feathers, but understands that this is a fad that will go out as fast as it comes in,” she said. “My dad is waiting it out. He says when the fad dies out, he’ll buy all the feathers we are stuck with,” she laughed.

There is a darker side to the fad, though, and it is one that some hair stylists and clients find to be a conundrum.

The roosters that are the source of the desirable hackle feathers do not survive the plucking.

Every rooster farm is different, stressed Mr Collins of Collins Hackle Farm, but the remains of the roosters harvested on his farm are composted. “It makes the richest compost,” he noted. Some of the bodies are collected by other farmers for animal feed, and another local farmer collects the manure. A year-old rooster is many months too old for sale as food, Mr Collins said, and it is costly to get rid of the bodies for fat rendering.

Animal Groups React

Animal concerns groups, such as Global Animal, question the ethics behind the slaughter of birds to feed a fad. Elizabeth Neville, writing online for Global Animal, notes “the roosters in question have been specifically bred to produce unnaturally long and beautiful saddle feathers (the ones on the bird’s backside), which are considered more desirable for fly fishing — and now for fashion.” Quoting an Orange County Register article, Ms Nevill goes on to write, “Whiting Farm [in Colorado] now ships out 65,000 bird hides per week as it tries to meet the aggressive demands of salon owners and stylist, as well as its classic fishing clientele. Needless to say, that is quite a haunting increase in rooster death… all for a faddish, temporary hair accessory…”

Dr Tom Whiting of Whiting Farms, Inc in Colorado, the largest producer of feathers in the fly tying world, contended in a prepared statement received by The Bee July 1 that while the roosters certainly do not survive harvesting of feathers, they do live a longer and gentler existence than those birds bred for meat.

“To breed and raise roosters for their feathers is a surprisingly technical and challenging endeavor,” said Dr Whiting. The right nutrition, lighting, environmental control, and expert husbandry are required to allow roosters to grow the valuable hackle feathers. “And on top of this, each individual rooster has to live a very pampered life,” he said.

Dr Whiting noted that roosters would harm each other if left in groups. Therefore, individual, spacious cages are provided to each rooster, with feeder and waterer, during the year they live. “They crow and strut and are kings of their own individual world. And if they weren’t content, they wouldn’t grow the beautiful feathers,” Dr Whiting pointed out.

Whiting Farms birds are euthanized painlessly, so that there is no distress or blood, unlike the brutal butchering of meat birds, said Dr Whiting. USDA inspection regulations prevent the carcass from being sold, so the bodies are composted. “So at least,” he said, “nothing is wasted.”

No “laboratory genetic engineering” is involved in the Whiting rooster lines, said Dr Whiting, but rather the use of study and knowledge, “coupled with vision” for natural reproduction. These years of genetic programs have directed the Whiting lines of birds to create feathers that are ideal for fly tyers, and surprisingly, said Dr Whiting, for the fashion industry, as well. “This has led us into a totally unexpected market. But Whiting Farms’ foundation business has been and will always remain the fishing world. We just have a new set of customers who can also utilize these special feathers,” he said.

Why Not Synthetic Feathers?

Why do hair stylists and fishermen not use synthetic substitutes for their needs?

“There’s not one [synthetic] in the world that can do what a natural feather can do,” explained Mr Turecek. “These hackle feathers are bred to be very flexible, so that they can be easily wrapped. A natural feather fly sits on the water’s surface. Any synthetic pulled to a point that fine will break the water surface,” he said, a very undesirable event when fishing for trout.

“We are looking into whether any synthetic feathers that are comparable to the natural feathers are available,” said Ms O’Connell at Salon Michele, who is aware that fly fishermen and animal concerns organizations are not happy. “But only one out of 40 has even asked about the source. They want [the feathers] for fashion and the trend.”

It is a personal decision for each client and hairstylist, said Ms O’Connell, and each one’s opinion is respected.

There is another reason that natural feathers are a must for this fashion, said Ms Carrier. Synthetic feathers on the market are just not safe for hair. “A natural feather can be curled, blow dried, washed, or whatever. Synthetic feathers can melt or catch on fire if a curling iron or heat is applied to them,” she cautioned. A synthetic feather would need to be removed frequently. One of the attractive features of the natural feather is that it is woven into the hair once, and stays put for weeks without concern.

Mr Riccio at Ricci’s Salon and Spa, agreed. “Anything synthetic will shrivel up, or even melt onto the hair, if a curling or flat iron is put to it,” he said.

He has not heard clients express any concerns about the source of the feathers, and pointed out that the feathers come from existing stock that would have been sold to fishermen.

“I was concerned at first,” admitted Ms Harty at Robert Anthony’s, “but these roosters are bred just for their feathers, after all. It’s a fad, and it’s harmless.

“Look at that smile,” she said as she finished weaving a feather into Shaylyn’s hair. “That’s why this is so much fun.”