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ANNIE WOON is well known worldwide for her brand WOON, creating conceptual wigs and props for catwalk shows and window displays for international brands and the world’s premier couture fashion houses in Paris. Her artistic wigs have also featured in numerous films and music videos and have been highly sought after by music stars and celebrities around the world. WOON wigs offer the fashion, music, film and art worlds a great variety of colour, style and an unlimited sense of fun.
Annie Woon was born and raised in Hong Kong in the 70s, where she studied law before moving to New York to work, but dropped out when she found her creative inspiration after seeing a display in a Warner’s Brothers Department Store in Manhattan. Annie was inspired to launch her business Woon to connect hair styling with high fashion to create one-of-a-kind wigs, displays and installations.
In 2013 Times Square invited Annie to create a unique art exhibition using wigs. The “WOON WIG WONDERLAND” project took Annie a whole year to complete, with 20 pieces of more than 1,118 kilograms of art installations made from hair. Each piece of work was handmade by Annie use various wig styling techniques.
As well as her bespoke wig making work with artists, films and the couture fashion houses, Annie has collaborated with brands on developing unique hair products such as straighteners. She has been invited to act as Creative Director on artistic projects and write columns for various international magazines.
Annie is now available to work as a Creative Director on projects in the UK for fashion brands, stores and for artists and is interested in talking to brands looking to take a new creative direction.
When did you first decide you wanted to start designing wigs?
I originally studied law, however during my undergraduate year – I went on a trip to New York to meet friends and discovered the incredible window displays at Warner Bros.
The windows had Bugs Bunny wearing different designers couture pieces. Each look was complete with Bugs Bunny wearing matching shoes, hat and handbag. However it lead me to think – what about the hair? I feel that the hair should be very cohesive and part of the total look.
This was in the mid 90’s and at that time the trend was for the boyish short hair. I felt that a wig could be the perfect weapon to achieve a total look. When I returned to Hong Kong I approached a wig factory and asked them to make a small run of wigs, using my design.