TRESSED TO IMPRESS

From glam high-fashion shoots to magical red-carpet moments, Dimitris Giannetos (a.k.a. the Greek hair god) is the secret weapon behind star-worthy locks

- JULIA Mc EWEN

Some people are born to teach, others to dance or sing. Dimitris Giannetos? He was destined to style. “Ever since I was a boy, I was playing with my mom’s and my sister’s hair,” he tells Hello! Canada. But his path to becoming one of Hollywood’s most in-demand stylists began far from the bright lights of Tinseltown.

Raised in a small village in Greece, Dimitris faced plenty of obstacles – starting with his own family. “At the time, it was still taboo for a man to be a hairstylist,” the 41-year-old explains. “So I told a little lie to my father – I said I wanted to be a barber.” At 16, he enrolled in beauty school. After graduating, he moved to Athens, where he quickly made a name for himself. “You kind of have to do everything there, so I specialized in colour, cut and style.” Before long, his perfectly coiffed tresses were gracing the pages of Vogue Greece and Harper’s Bazaar Greece.

By 29, Dimitris was ready for more. “I had reached the peak in Greece, and I asked myself, What’s next?” In 2012, he took a leap of faith, moving to New York City – and, soon after, Los Angeles – with nothing but ambition and a pair of shears. “Those first few months were tough – I didn’t speak English,” he recalls. But what he lacked in language skills, he made up for in talent, proving that great hair needs no translation.