Jonas - The Hair Stylist

Jonas Hallberg is Sweden´s most well known stylist internationally with clients among the absolute A-list in Hollywood. To get there has taken time and not always been easy but now he is exactly where he should be.

Working as a stylist is still seen as a bit odd by quite a lot of people that don’t really know what they do. One of the reasons to this might be that they are normally a bit in the background, not the least in the shade of the photographers. Still the stylists are incredibly important, not the least in a country like the US where personal styling of celebs is so much bigger than in Sweden.

Jonas HallbergJonas career started in a completely different way than one might think – he started out as a waiter at cool nightclub Café Opera in Stockholm. This was the melting pot of the time though and just like at studio 54 in NY it was the place to get contacts that could lead to unexpected turns in your life. One of Jonas´s colleagues was Liza that was also working for model agency MIKAs. One day she asked if Jonas he wanted to help out on a job for the agency.

It is no wonder that most stylists do not have a formal education. First of all it is not really clear if there is any really good education at any school and second it is the stylists personal qualities that are among the most important skills. You have to be perceptive, a sure instinct, be able to nurture your own style and – the most important of all – be phenomenal at networking.

These are all characters that Jonas has so it comes as no surprise that Jonas accepts the offer from his colleague. This results in him doing a job where he meets the Editor in Chief from fashion magazine Femina, Mona Orremalml. Obviously he did one or two things right since Mona later comes back and asks if he wants to join her for a job in Miami, which he does. This job leads to the two of them continuing to work together and Jonas gets to learn the job properly. “I am extremely grateful that I had the possibility of learning the job from Mona. She is old school and has really taught me everything from scratch. It is something I still enjoy these days when it has become my turn to be the teacher”, says Jonas.

After about a year of working together it was time for some freelancing and in 1995 a move to London. London was supposed to be for six month but he stayed for over seven years. The most important about London was the Jonas got to work for Michiko Koshino, the woman behind the Yen jeans. Among other things she took him to Japan. “Koshino is like a clan in Japan and it was a lot of prestige working with them”. Through Michikio Jonas also got an enormous network in London, which led to jobs for the big British Magazines as well as for Swedish Elle.

Two out of many many covers.Despite a successful career in London there was a lack of family and friends so after seven years the bags are packed and Jonas is back in Stockholm. Might sound bizarre but once here an old dream started to appear in his head – to work in Hollywood and this is when the story really starts going in the fast lane.

It all starts with Jonas being in LA for an editorial job and once there he meets an agent that wants to represent him. Despite some doubt this leads to a few small jobs there during a couple of year’s time. These small jobs leads to the first celeb shoot, one with Sophia Bush for American GQ. One might think that Sophia is the important person here but it is actually her publicist. She and Jonas gets along really well and then later leads to Jonas having to interrupt a vacation in Europe to fly over to Toronto for a shoot with Catherine Zeta-Jones.

One job leads to the next and as was pointed out before personal styling of celebrities is a lot bigger in the US, not the least because of their fondness for the whole red carpet culture. There are a few really big red carpets and how the celebrities look on these is really important, not the least because of all the best and worst dressed lists that always follow the events.

Jennifer Love Hewitt was one of the celebs that had managed to top the worst dressed list for years and she was the challenge for Jonas´s first Emmy Award. A black dress from Dolce and a Love brosch from Lacroix on the bag in a confident style was what was needed to take Jennifer from worst to best dressed and the pictures of her were distributed all over the world. After this there is not end to the amount of A-list celebrities that Jonas gets to work with.

With all this one wonders how it is to work in the more modest environment of Stockholm that he still does from time to time. “It is fun and creative and you get really appreciated”, Jonas says. “It is also nice to be different. The styling in Sweden is quite conservative and standardized so it is great that my more glamorous style now is more accepted and appreciated”.

There is a lot more to be said about this man. Despite his phenomenal his success he is still very down to earth that is always so very nice to meet. Jonas always has a kind word to say and only once during the interview does he get a bit angry and that is when talking about Swedish celebrities. “It is far too unglamorous. How can you do an entrance at a movie premiere in jeans and a T? They should learn from Hollywood!!”

This is obviously something we have to agree upon and that we are certain we will see more of in Stockholm if we get some well needed help and push from Jonas – someone we obviously want to see more of in Sweden as well!