Adam Garland has worked backstage, assisted Sam McKnight, and had two shots at getting onto Guido Palau's team. Right now he's in his dad's garage in Somerset, UK, building a hair education platform from scratch. In this episode we talk about how he broke into session work (Model Mayhem, zero plan), the real cost of working for free, imposter syndrome, addiction and recovery, why chasing the agency dream was holding him back, and what changed when he finally let it go. He also shares the products he genuinely uses on set and why the humble ponytail elastic deserves way more respect than it gets.
How Adam fell into hairdressing at 14 and went from a village salon to Vidal Sassoon, Tony & Guy, and eventually session work
Finding his way into editorial around 2008-2010 via Model Mayhem, testing before he even knew testing was a thing
Assisting Sam McKnight backstage at Chanel with Karl Lagerfeld and Kendall Jenner in the chair
What nobody tells you about walking into those environments for the first time when you're from a small town
The industry language nobody teaches you: options, confirms, releases, pencils, hard outs
The pay debate: why working for free is not a free university, it's one day of university
His experience on Guido Palau's team, twice, and why it didn't work out either time
Addiction, recovery, and how starting his recovery journey around 2018 changed everything
Why Sam McKnight's team stood by him for five years through the hard stuff
AI in the creative industry and why "AI slop" is the wrong response
Letting go of the agency dream and what happened to his career when he did
Building sessionhair.com: 1:1 mentoring, a free initial consult, and an education platform coming soon
Archive research and why knowing your references is how you find your visual identity
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