Giovanna Simington is only 22 years old and already her talent has managed to earn her a coveted NAHA title. Giovanna won the Student Hairstylist of the Year NAHA in 2011!
NAHA is celebrating 25 amazing years in just a few more weeks, and we had the pleasure of speaking with the blooming stylist extraordinaire Giovanna Simington, on her NAHA experience and how she was able to begin her career so young.
Giovanna was born and raised in California surrounded by a family in the beauty industry. Both of her parents were hairdressers, making her constantly surrounded by hair, makeup, and photo shoots. By the age 13, she was already doing her friends hair, and new exactly what she was doing. She could formulate color and most of the time her experiments went as planned!
When she finally chose to do hair as her career, her family was thrilled. “I now know that this was my fate and I’m so lucky to have discovered it at such a young age,” says Giovanna. We couldn’t agree more!
Winning a NAHA award can be compared to winning an Oscar at the Academy Awards. “It is the biggest honor, in my eyes, to be given to a hairstylist. Winning NAHA has changed my life and my career by putting my name out there and launching me into success. I have gotten a lot of feedback from winning NAHA and am still so honored by the whole experience. It has given opportunities I might not have had if I hadn’t pushed myself to enter the competition. I don’t think any words can describe the overwhelming feeling of happiness and accomplishment I felt when my name was called. I was walking on the moon. It still may not have hit me,” gushed Giovanna.
Her 2011 winning collection came from many different inspirations. Giovanna says it all started with a story board and spiraled into a million other ideas from there. Her collection ended up being nothing like the story board she first created. She was very into a mono-chromatic theme so she decided to go with it. “I was so beyond thrilled with the winning look.”
Her best memory of her NAHA experience? When she saw her name up on the NAHA website for nominees for 2011. She remembers screaming with excitement! “It was so rewarding going to school the next day and everybody already knew and were congratulating me. That’s when it got real!” explained Giovanna.
We asked Giovanna what she believed it takes to win a NAHA title and she believes to win NAHA at all, you have to be very motivated and have a good attitude. Explaining, whether you win or lose, it is such an amazing experience to be apart of.
Her overall inspiration for her passion can be pinpointed to Dimitrios Tsioumas. She expressed how his work is so intriguing and beautiful and “he’s just been killing it!! I have a lot of respect for him. I would love to watch him work on a photo shoot.” She also takes inspiration from other places, sometimes random things, like nature or lyrics from a song. She have always been very inspired by technical work that can be twisted into something artistic, like Vidal Sassoon of course.
Giovanna’s professional life has consisted of working in her salon in Corona Del Mar. It’s called Ashtin Salon. “I feel honored to be a part of such a beautiful, well manicured salon. I also still am very involved in editorial work and am very passionate about make up as well. Not many people know this – but I did the makeup for my 2011 NAHA collection!“ She keeps herself motivated with doing photo shoots as much as she can. Giovanna plans on entering NAHA next year and is already working on ideas for her collection! “I will continue to constantly educate myself and further myself in this industry. You’ll be seeing more of me, I’m not close to being done.“
