Parker: Click salon owners can expect hairy time at 5 designer shows

By Penny Parker, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published September 6, 2006 at midnight

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Click salon owner Charlie Price is getting ready for the diva dance. When he flies to New York tonight for a weeklong hair affair during Spring 2007 Fashion Week, Price will tote a large suitcase stuffed with hair products, blow dryers and hair extensions to tame and tease models' tresses for five designer shows, beginning Friday.

Price and Click co-owners Joy Dyk, Cameron Letterman and Kelly Anolin will work their mousse magic for fashion shows by Sabyasachi, Charlotte Ronson, Jason Wu, Manuel and Jay McCarroll.

"When you do a show you have to be there three hours before," Price said during a break from styling a mannequin's wig in his Cherry Creek salon before e-mailing pictures to a designer.

"The first hour and a half are really boring because only a few of the models are there. Then it builds in intensity and gets crazy. The people running the show get more agitated and there's more screaming."

Price, who's worked at Fashion Week twice a year since 1998, has lassoed the locks of many supermodels, including Naomi Campbell, Carmen Kass, Erin O'Connor, Helena Christensen and Karen Elson.

"Some of them are horrible divas," Price dished. "Karen Elson is the worst. She doesn't want anyone combing her hair, and she always says people are burning her hair. When I see her, I always run in the other direction."

In addition to styling, Price is sponsoring or co-sponsoring all five shows, which means a $15,000 investment - not counting the cost of the hotel and spending money.

"It's a mixture of excitement and dread," Price said about Fashion Week. "People in fashion are every bit as vapid and irritating as you think . . . probably worse. At the same time, I love it in spite of that. I actually love the fashion, I just don't love what surrounds it."

SUPER NANNY: Before he started ordering adult beverages for the Peaks Lounge in the Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center, Vince Walton was unwrapping juice boxes for power broker Steve Farber's youngest son, Brad.

Walton, the assistant beverage manager at Peaks, served as super nanny for nine years to Cindy and Steve's boys: Gregg, Brent and Brad.

"I really loved the kids," said Walton, who first met the Farbers at the Sonnenalp in Vail. "It was different, their world. They would take me on all the exotic trips they went on."

Farber calls Walton a "part of the family," adding "he had an important role in my younger son's life."

Walton left the job when the kids started going to college. Would Steve hire him back if there was a fourth Farber child on the way?

"That's not an issue," said the sixtysomething lawyer. "I'm not having another child."

IDOL NOT IDLE: American Idol winner Taylor Hicks got to town early for his Tuesday night Pepsi Center concert. So he caught the Willie Nelson/Nitty Gritty Dirt Band concert at Red Rocks on Sunday night, joining Willie and the Dirt Band on I'll Fly Away and the final encore of Will The Circle Be Unbroken.

THE SEEN: Olympic short track speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno having dessert with 25 people Saturday night at Racines.

EAVESDROPPING on a man and a woman at McCormick's downtown: "Why aren't panhandlers in Cherry Creek?"

"Because they can't afford the parking."

parkerp@RockyMountainNews.com.

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