PEABODY — Local hairstylist Stephanie Agneta will be working on extra special clients very soon: models at New York Fashion Week.
The 26-year-old lifelong Peabody resident co-owns Salon CC and has done hair for independent films, small TV shows and local residents throughout her career. Now, she’ll work on her biggest project yet.
“I just love doing hair and the people you get to meet,” Agneta said. “I’m very thankful for the internet because that is how I got my opportunity to be at New York Fashion Week.”
The director of hair and makeup for New York Fashion Week messaged Agneta after spotting her work on Instagram. Following an interview, she asked Agneta to join a team of 30 other hairstylists who will be working on fashion shows in the Big Apple from Sept. 9 to 14.
Agneta will mostly be doing ponytails, beach waves and other looks that match the summer aesthetic of the designers’ clothing. Often, they will be very simple to better show off the fashion.
She hopes to be invited back to New York’s next Fashion Week in February.
“That week is more of an avant-garde style,” Agneta said. “It’s more of that dramatic, artsy look, which I like, especially sculpting.”
Agneta started her career through the cosmetology program at Peabody Veterans Memorial High School. After graduating in 2014, she and her mother, Rochelle Agneta, opened Salon CC.
Rochelle Agneta isn’t a hairdresser herself. She originally owned an oil company that she started from the ground up, but always dreamed of owning a spa. When her daughter finished her cosmetology program at Peabody High, she went back to school to learn how to do nails.
Eight years later, the salon and spa moved to a larger location at the Mills 58 on Pulaski Street and now employs 18 stylists. On top of doing hair and nails, Salon CC offers skincare, massage therapy and spray tanning.
“It’s like one big family,” Rochelle Agneta said. “I really love what I do and I love that I have something to add.”
Her daughter has built a large clientele, she said, and if she has to leave home to take on bigger opportunities, then so be it.
“I hate to see her venture out to the point that she leaves me and moves to California, but if that’s what it is, that’s what it will be,” she said. “But I am very excited. And I’m so proud of her. She’s done more in eight years than I’ve seen some of our girls do in 30 years.”
Stephanie Agneta’s experience includes apprenticing as a hairstylist on the TV series “The Old Man,” which stars Jeff Bridges and came out this summer. She’s also working as a hairstylist for a movie that Endicott College graduate students filmed before the start of the pandemic.
“There’s so many other paths that hairdressers can take, and I think when people go in, they just think to get their license and get behind the chair and take clients 12 hours a day, six days a week,” she said.
“You’re always on the grind,” she continued. “So when you get an opportunity to work on stage or behind the scenes or for small independent movies and TV shows doing hair and makeup, it’s just really cool to be a part of that and see the bigger picture at the end.”
Contact Caroline Enos at CEnos@northofboston.com and follow her on Twitter @CarolineEnos.
