Hairdressing icon Garren talks transformative celebrity cuts and his top styling tips

When it comes to major chops, Garren doesn’t take any shortcuts.

The celebrity hairstylist-turned-R+Co cofounder has meticulously created headline-making hair transformations for everyone from Madonna to Victoria Beckham — including the latter’s iconic 2008 pixie cut.

“She [said], ‘I got to take the Posh out of me,’” Garren told Page Six Style, recalling how he encouraged the former Spice Girl to ditch her hair extensions and embrace a shorter style before pivoting to fashion design.

“I styled it, and [when] she was done she was like, ‘Oh my God, I look so good … I look so much younger, and I don’t look so stiff,” he added.

“She was a little nervous when she started seeing all the hair come out of her head from the extensions,” Garren recalled of Beckham. Dimitrios Kambouris

While he finished the dramatic chop on a Thursday night, he said Beckham opted to stay inside her hotel for nearly four days so she could debut her dramatic ‘do at a Marc Jacobs show.

“All the press was all over her,” he told us. “The next day she said, ‘When Jennifer Lopez picked me up, she opened the door and she said, ‘Garren did your hair.’”

The stylist’s earned a reputation for helping stars reinvent themselves — and even cosplay other icons, in the case of Kim Kardashian, whom he helped transform into Elizabeth Taylor and Jackie Kennedy for various magazine cover shoots.


Kim Kardashian on the cover of Allure Magazine.
Garren styled Kim Kardashian sans extensions for her first-ever Allure cover in 2010. Allure

Karlie Kloss and hairstylist Garren pose for a photo backstage at the Anna Sui fashion show.
Garren (pictured at NYFW in 2014) has also worked with Karlie Kloss many times over the years. Stephen Lovekin

But it all started with a star from another era: Farrah Fawcett. After he gave her a bob for a Studio 54 party in the ’70s, the look made newspaper headlines and the pair became fast friends.

“We just had such a great time,” he said. “She’d come to our apartment, we’d go to dinner together — it was just great.”


Portrait of Farrah Fawcett smiling.
Farrah Fawcett was one of his first celebrity clients. Bettmann Archive

Madonna at a podium with a microphone and an award.
He also worked with Madonna for many years, creating iconic looks like her 1995 VMAs hairstyle. WireImage

Now, decades later, Garren told us he just wishes folks would take more risks with their looks, saying trends have been stuck “on one note” for 10 years.

“I’m just so bored with it, so I started doing interviews and saying, ‘Please cut your hair. Whack it off, chop it — do something to it,” he laughed.

He’s also confronting hair myths head-on with his R+Co and R+Co Bleu hair care lines, telling us the notion that you should switch your shampoo and conditioner up often is “not true, if it’s good [product].” (His line includes Reparative, Essential and Blonded collections aimed at different hair colors and goals.)

Below, Garren shares more of his expert tips, tricks and essential styling products.

R+Co BLEU Smooth & Seal Blow-Dry Mist in a blue bottle.
R+Co

“I find that if you have very curly hair … and you want to smooth the hair out so it has a nice shine to it, this is the go-to product for that. [It] makes your blowout take half the time.”


R+Co BLEU Essential Hair Tonic bottle.
R+Co

“My one go-to, all-purpose styling product. It doesn’t weigh the hair down, it just closes the cuticle and gives the hair a lot of protection.”


R+Co Bleu Daily Forecast Finishing Spray.
R+Co

“[This] has been a big winner for the people that live in the East Coast if it’s raining out and it’s humid. They could finish their hair at home, and then they could spray their hair with this, get to the restaurant or the event that they’re going to, and run their brush or their fingers through their hair. It all bounces back and [looks] shiny.”


R+Co BLEU LIFESTYLER Dry Texture Spray.
R+Co

“Flip the head upside down and spray it all through the hair. Then shake your head upside down, let it dry and flip your head back. It gets really voluminous and separated and full. The waves come back.”



Why Trust Page Six Style Shopping

This article was written by Hannah Southwick, Commerce Associate Editor for Page Six. Hannah spies deals on actually affordable celebrity-worn styles, puts celebrities’ brands to the test and finds the beauty products that keep stars red carpet-ready. She consults stylists and industry pros — including celebs themselves — for firsthand product recommendations, trend predictions and more. In addition to writing for Page Six since 2020, her work has been featured in USA Today and Parade.


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