Beard Season all started after one of our mates Wes Bonny died from melanoma back in 2010. He was only 26. This hit us like a tonne of bricks. So at his funeral we decided to start something in his honour. Something which would have a real impact on one of the world’s deadliest cancers. After a quick Google we discovered that most people at risk of melanoma weren’t the old leathery types we all imagine, they were aged 18-45 and most of them men. Because I work in advertising I knew this is one of the hardest audiences to speak to, especially when it comes to health. Most young men think they’re bulletproof and would never just walk into the doctor for a check up without a decent nudge. These were the dots we needed to connect. But how?
Well… In the corner of the bar at Wes’ wake we spotted a couple of old farmers with amazing bushy beards. We thought strewth, why don’t blokes our age grow beards? Beards take commitment. So does a skin check. Let’s give it a crack. Every winter since has been Beard Season. We now have over eighty thousand ambassadors from over 28 different countries. Generated over 4.5 million dollars worth of earned media. Spoken at TEDx, schools, creative conferences and festivals. More recently, we’ve run free #BeardSeasonSkincheck tents at events finding that just under a third of the people we check have something which could become deadly. Thanks to all this, we save an average of a life a week.
Meeting Mr Elbank
Mr Elbank and I met at an advertising agency I was working at in Sydney. He brought in his photo portfolio to show our creative department (which was brilliant). After the meeting he said he’d been photographing beards for quite some time, and asked if I’d like to sit for a portrait. Having never really done anything like this before and seeing his work I thought ‘what the heck’.
Two months later I was in his home studio making friends with his pooch Monty, drinking Stone&Wood and sitting on a stool with a worn union jack as the cushion. He said “the last person to sit on that stool was Paul Mac (a famous producer & DJ in Australia), don’t let me down”. The photos he took went viral. Popping up on coffee cups in the Greek Islands, murals in Spain, on t-shirts, tattoos, skate board decks, oil paintings in Wall St and even as a two story print in the lobby of a Peruvian Hotel. It was absolutely mind blowing and a copyright lawyer’s wet dream.
Anyhow, after hearing about Beard Season, Brock wanted to put a stake in the ground. Not only because this was his work, but because these images were connected to a charity, something more important than just a trend. So one day before he left for the UK, he said he wanted to make a deck of playing cards, featuring some of the greatest beards in the world. This became #Project60.
Funding #Project60
We didn’t have any funding. Beard Season is dedicated to spreading action and awareness. We don’t rattle a tin. So the mission was extremely tough.
Essentially, over the course of 18 months, Mr Elbank opened his home and his life to something which built up a huge global momentum. His idea to call it #Project60 and never reveal what it actually was for had an air of mystery about it. Each person who sat for a portrait shared their wonderfully crafted, watermarked image and the legend soon grew. All in all he had to sort through two and a half thousand applications. People writing in with a headshot and their story. People were chosen based on character, what they could bring to the charity and how they would add diversity to the body of work.
Everything was shot at the Elbank family home in leafy Warwickshire, just below Stratford Upon Avon in England (except for a couple taken in Bath at the British Beard And Moustache Championships which I flew over from Australia to judge).
Each participant paid for their own travel; met Mr Elbank at the train station; were treated to a strong coffee or chilled larger; dressed themselves (often from Mr Elbank’s own wardrobe); groomed their whiskers with Captain Fawcett’s beard oil; sat for the portrait; were introduced to the kids and his darling wife Sarah; posed for a photo with their talented staffy Monty; then fondly farewelled with detailed instructions about how to spread the word.
Exhibiting at Somerset House
Over the course of #Project60 I travelled to the UK three times. It was a hectic time co-ordinating everything, juggling stakeholders and keeping the show on the road. As it grew it became more and more complex with mounting expectation. So, we thought we’d better celebrate everyone’s hard work and dedication with a launch at a gallery somewhere in London. This somewhere just so happened to be one of the most respected galleries in the United Kingdom. None other than the hallowed halls of Somerset House.
As with a lot of things on the Beard Season journey, it happened somewhat by divine intervention. Our mate Wes perhaps pulling some serious strings.
Towards the business end of this project we had collected quite a team who were generously donating their time. Producers, printers, framers, beard oil barons and PR goddesses. Hunting far and wide for a space who would have us. From underground abandoned train stations to trendy studios in Shoreditch. Happily, someone knew someone who happened to be on the board for Somerset House. They tipped us off about a surprise opening just after men’s fashion week in a perfect wing of this spectacular gallery. It was too good to pass up.
So, with no budget and a team scattered around the world. We pitched our heads off to everyone we thought would fit. Eventually, at the midnight hour, with the crushing weight of the realisation that I soon might have to pay for all this with loans and my life savings, our pitch deck landed on the desk of Jean Claude Biver. Charismatic CEO of the Swiss Watch company Hublot. He apparently immediately loved it. Being a bold, out of the box brand known for their passionate innovation, he fell in love with the Beard Season cause and powerful photography of Mr Elbank. Our gorgeous producer Cate McKay Haynes teed up a meeting in London and a sponsorship deal was brokered. A month or so later (and a lot of heavy lifting) we had a stunning opening party with over 400 glittering guests, launching what became one of the most visited exhibitions at Somerset House. It was such a surreal feeling seeing people not only lining up well into the courtyard to visit your show, but lining up to see an individual portrait. Such a great moment for everyone involved, made even more touching when we came face to face with people who had found an early stage melanoma because of the exposure the series had brought to such an important issue.
The Challenges
This could very easily have been one of those ideas which slipped away with time and the day to day grind. Anyone who has met Mr Elbank knows he’s not only a perfectionist, he’s a driven son of a gem. Without his day in-day out dedication, skype calls across the world, amazingly welcoming family and brunt nosed passion, #Project60 would never have been accomplished. There was no budget, no set timeline, an ever shifting finish line and a hefty amount of admin. Mr Elbank was bringing up a young family and I was working full time in advertising. Not only this but we were operating in different time zones so it was actually non stop. The bigger it got, the more demanding it became. Communication and teamwork was critical. As well as trust. Trust in each other and that we could all work together to make it all worthwhile.