Hair Fashion, Hair Couture & Wearable Hair Art
VanStrands Hair Designs by Bee Sam Beauty: Transforming Hair Into Fashion
When Sam Borenheim is not behind the chair at the salon, the focus shifts to exploring hair as a medium for fashion, wearable art, and visual design. Sam is the owner of Bee Sam Beauty in Vancouver, Washington, and a master colorist, educator, inventor, and hair fashion designer whose work explores hair beyond its traditional role in beauty. For decades, Sam has worked at the intersection of hair artistry, color, fashion construction, texture, and visual design. From creating Boxy Balayage to inventing VanStrands sparkle hair extensions, that creative approach continues through handcrafted hair couture and fashion designs that use hair as a textile.
Hair as a Textile and Fashion Material
Sam approaches hair as a fashion material, textile, and design element. Hair offers structure, movement, texture, dimension, volume, and visual impact. It can be layered, woven, shaped, and incorporated into garments, accessories, and complete runway looks. This approach brings together hair design, fashion design, textile art, costume construction, and wearable art, opening new possibilities for what hair can become.
A Background in Hair, Art & Fashion
The foundation for Sam’s work began early. After being accepted into an art-focused high school program centered on makeup and creative arts, Sam began working at Glamour Shots at age 16. That experience brought together hair, makeup, styling, visual transformation, and photography. During the 1990s, Sam also sewed and created clothing, developing an interest in textiles, garment construction, shape, texture, and materials. Fashion has a place in Sam’s family history as well. Sam’s grandfather worked as a women’s coat designer, adding a family connection to garment construction and fashion design. Those interests continued alongside a career in professional hair and color. Hair became Sam’s primary medium, while fashion construction and visual design remained central to the creative process.
From Hair Artistry to Hair Couture
Today, Sam brings those disciplines together through handcrafted hair couture and wearable hair fashion. The designs incorporate hair into unconventional forms, including garments, accessories, and complete hair outfits. On the runway, the movement, texture, sparkle, and structure of each piece come to life. Upcycled bodices, bras, dresses, purses, and other fashion components can be deconstructed, sewn, reshaped, and combined with hair to create new forms. Hair becomes part of the outfit itself.
VanStrands in Hair Fashion
A defining element of Sam’s work is VanStrands, the sparkle hair extension system Sam invented. VanStrands combines sequin ribbon and fairy hair tinsel to create sparkle, movement, and dimension. Originally developed as sparkle hair extensions, it has also become an integral material in Sam’s hair couture designs. Incorporated throughout the pieces, the reflective strands catch light and move with the hair and garment, contributing to the overall design. The collection, VanStrands Hair Designs by Bee Sam Beauty, brings together Sam’s work as an inventor and hair fashion designer.
Hair Fashion as Wearable Art
Sam’s work explores the space between hairstyling and fashion design through wearable hair art, avant-garde construction, and textile-inspired pieces. Each design begins with the possibility that hair can become a garment, structure, accessory, or complete fashion statement. Hair, textiles, color, sparkle, movement, and light work together, allowing each material to contribute to the finished form. The result is an approach to fashion in which hair plays a central role in both construction and expression.
A New Direction for Hair Design
From salon color and invention to sewing and wearable art, Sam continues to explore what hair can become. Hair can be styled. Hair can be colored. Hair can be extended. And hair can become fashion. Through handcrafted couture, runway looks, and the integration of VanStrands, Sam is developing a visual language that treats hair as material, textile, fashion, and art.
