#frederic van espen

[royal-hair]

BELGIUM - Frédéric Van Espen, Claude Noterdame & Alain Tholl de l'Enclos

Starting with the current Queen's hairdresser, Frédéric Van Espen steppend into the position in 2013, just before she became Queen of the Belgians, and has been styling her for national and international events since then. He has also worked with Elisabeth and Eléonore.

He's the owner of Didier & Rosalinde hair salon in Brussels, but he usually works wiith Mathilde in the private quarters at Laeken Castle. Looking at the website and portfolio you can see the similarities of his other works and what we've seen on Mathilde for a while:

I found an interview on the occasion of his 10th anniversary as the Queen's hairdresser where Frédéric gave a lot of detals of his work with Mathilde, even how it all started (second link below). According to what he said to HLN he's good friend with Edouard Vermeulen at Natan and he recommended him to Mathilde's team because her previous hairdresser was quitting.

His very first work was for Willem-Alexander's enthronement events, a tiara event to launch his career as the Queen's hairdresser, and not a simple gala, but an event for history books. I gotta confess that even if it's not an updo, Mathilde's hair on the day of the entronement it's one of my fave looks on her and I do see a change in style from the previous years.

Frédéric talked about how sometimes is dissatisfied with his work and that he notice little mistakes and is concerned about the outcome but that Mathilde reacts light-heartedly with a "Oh, that happens!" and I think that's the most on-brand Mathilde.

He also stated that when there are public events, he styles Mathilde at 7AM at Laeken, but on the occasional time, she goes to his salon and they have a private box for high profile clients such as her or, surprise, Prince Laurent. Frédéric also talked about when there's a state visit or during national day, he goes to the palace several times because everytme Mathilde changes clothes, he match the hair with the outfit, or when there's a trip abroad, he works on the plane in the stewards cabin without a mirror (talk about trust).

While he talks about what Mathilde likes, he says that she likes to stick to her classic style, but that Elisabeth now that she came of age give him more room to experiment. This interview was made 2 years ago, and I can't assure that he always does Elisabeth's har, but because she isn't a full-time working royal and her events are pretty limited, it's pretty safe to say that he's the one behind her two tiara appearances.

And I don't want to end this post without mentioning Paola's two known hairdressers: Claude Noterdam and Alain Tholl de l'Enclos. While Alain is also mentioned as her hairdresser, my guess from what I actually found, is that Claude was her main hairdresser for about 40 years. He was the owner of Maison Roger in Brussels and in 2016 he stepped down handing the salon to Alain and that's why he is also mentioned, because of the conection to Maison Roger.

Claude Noterdame started working with her when she was newly engaged to Albert, so he was the one behind those big updos we all liked (because we do agree that she had the best hair of her generation of Queens, right?)

He said that she visited his salon at least once a week, but when she couldn't he went to work at Belvédère Palace. He also accompained her to visits to the United States of Lebanon.

I actually found a small interview that RTL did in 2017 with Claude where he shows an archive of pictures of her updos that I would kill to see for myself and he also keeps pictures of a young Claude with Paola in different gatherings. It's in french and I understand just a little bit. Here it is in case you want to see those pictures and him talkng for 5 minutes:

Of course there's less information about the older generation's hairdressers, or at least is harder for me because of the limited resources in languages I don't speak (you should see me translating the dutch interviews hahaha). But at least there's something to offer you in these series of royal hairdressers.

To close this belgian edition,, I found a few titbits about Alain: he also styled Mathilde (probably before Frédéric came into the picture in 2013) and Princess Claire. He also works with Princess Laurentien of The Netherlands and both ladies usually have their hair done like any other client in the salon. He also stated that when they're in Belgum, he styles Princesses Marie Astrid and Margaretha of Luxembourg and Hereditary Grand Duchess Stéphanie.

Sources: x x x x x x