Phil Stone never really wanted to do hair. Instead, for several years, Phil lived as a starving artist in the underground comic book industry as an illustrator. He illustrated graphic comic books that were not only rejected by the editor, but absolutely abhorred by the distributor. After nearly eight years of becoming infamous through police records and overdue bar tabs across the country, Phil reluctantly crawled out of his hole of an apartment and attended a hair show in Detroit with his mother, who is still a stylist today.
Phil discovered Irvin Rusk on stage and was entranced by the way the hair fabric was manipulated into a three-dimensional animated form. Inspired by the creation of living, breathing art, Phil decided that day he was going to be a stylist. For two years, Phil went through a rigorous apprenticeship under his mother and long-time friend, quitting every Friday out of frustration, and coming back to the training every Tuesday out of determination to succeed. It was a long two years. Six months before graduation, Phil went through his RUSK training and became a RUSK Designer. It was exactly what he was looking for. To Phil, RUSK was like Andy Warhol’s Factory on a global scale.
A sharing of ideas and opinions to achieve a certain goal through art. Being the gung-ho manic depressive artist that Phil is, spiced up with ADHD, Phil dedicated himself not only to RUSK, but also to his salon and the Detroit fashion scene (if there really was one). Doing hair for local fashion designers for runway events, photo shoots, and fine art photography allowed Phil to express himself relentlessly. Within two years, Phil had worked at two salons and then built his own, only to close it a year later after becoming a full-time Education Manager and full-time International Guest Artist for RUSK.
For several years thereafter, Phil traveled the world on a full-time basis to far away places like London, Dubai, Paris, Australia, Toronto, and Paducah, Kentucky. Phil also became a New York fashion week stylist for four years, styling hair for designers such as B Michael, Sabayashi, Obedient Sons, Buckler, and Nicholai, to name a few. Tired of the snobbery and ego-maniacal facades, Phil went into doing the hair for the people he really loved, playmates for Playboy.tv, and Maxim Hometown Hotties.
Phil has always, and still does, believe in the grass-roots policy of RUSK: To not only do a fantastic haircut, but also have the passion to share it with others. Like Jackson Pollock, Phil stumbled upon his medium of expression through circumstance and found true artistic success through hair.
The fear of being stagnant and artistically dead motivates Phil to continue learning and discovering new ways to express himself through hair.
The Real Hair Truth 
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