For A. G. Cook’s surreal, hyper-styled music video featuring Charli XCX, and Kylie Jenner, hair wasn’t an accessory — it was kind of the star. The video features at least 40 Charli clones with their best “brat hair,” big, wavy and black all to promote “The Moment,” Charli’s upcoming mockumentary. Celebrity and editorial hairstylist Rachel Lita was the hair lead and made this bonkers concept come to life with her team.
We sat down with her to talk about how the shoot came together, where she sourced that many wigs and more. Read on for the conversation.
The Tease: Tell us about the concept, did you always know there would be Charli clones?
Rachel Lita: So this video was put together in a week. I didn’t have much time. Aidan [Zamiri], the director, who is also best friends with Charli, he came up with the concept. As a collective they come up with them. He thought it should be 40 clones of Charli and it kinda just happened that way.
Basically when they contacted me about the job, they said they wanted someone who can do wigs. I was like ‘absolutely.’ They just told me there would be 40 background, and they needed wigs. The stylist had actually ordered the wigs because of the timeframe. And she sent me the wigs and the caps, and asked ‘is this good?’ ‘Oh, by the way it’s going to be Charli’s clone.’
The wigs were from Amazon, most were synthetic with a natural wave. To get 40 wigs in less than 3 days… We had to order from a couple Amazon stores. And we had like 10-15 on hold at a wig shop just in case. I had 4 assistants and we worked really fast. I probably did 15 out of the 40 people. Every single person got a wig. They were partial lace fronts. I couldn’t sew them in.
So how did you go about prepping the wigs for the shoot? What products were you using?
Rachel Lita: We just used Ebin New York Sports Edition Wonder Lace Bond Adhesive Spray for the front and göt2b. Most of the wigs already came curled. Thank god! If we have to get these wigs on these girls…
There’s some pretty intense hair whipping scenes, did you know about that?
Rachel Lita: They didn’t tell us! They said the dance moves are going to be crazy and the wigs need to stay on. I did Doja’s backup dancers for the VMAs. I’ve done this. I thought it was going to be easy. They forgot to tell me they were going to whip their heads 15-20 times.
Towards the end it was a little bit of a disaster, but they pretty much stayed on until the like fifteenth time.
Having seen the final video, how does it feel to see your work x40?
Rachel Lita: I think I was a little confused when they were filming. It’s not shot in the sequence of how it was going to go. But it was really cool. I was like: wow, we did that. I was very proud. They killed it. Those wigs were on. Nothing flew off! It was really cool. Aidan [Zamiri] was really happy. That for me was everything.
Last question, will ‘brat hair’ ever be over?
Rachel Lita: No, ‘brat hair’ is always going to be in. It’s an it-girl hairstyle. It’s not going to go away.
To see Rachel Lita and team’s work in action, watch the official music video for A. G. Cook’s “Residue” — linked below.
