Chris McMillan
Ideas of Order
Celebrity hairstylist Chris McMillan shares his journey from growing up in Southern California and Palm Springs to becoming a defining force
Key takeaways
- Early exposure to Southern California's lifestyle and Palm Springs' architectural beauty cultivated Chris McMillan's deep appreciation for design and style.
- His formative experiences as a pool boy at the Riviera Hotel allowed him to observe human behavior and aesthetics closely, fueling his creative instincts.
Main topics
- Creative development through environment and upbringing
- The influence of architecture and design on personal identity
Notable quotes
Each team, from the design team, to the styling team, to the hair and makeup teams, to the production teams, everyone works in teams, and you're only as good as your team.
Conclusion
Chris McMillan's story illustrates how personal experiences, creative curiosity, and
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:00) Each team, from the design team, to the styling team, to the hair and makeup teams, to the production teams, everyone works in teams, and you're only as good as your team. Speaker 3 (0:11) Welcome to Ideas of Order, a California Closets podcast about the true meaning of home. It's not just the spaces we live in, but the rituals, the memories, and the quiet moments that really speak to who we are and how we move through the world. I'm Jeremiah Brent, and today I am joined by my dear friend. For more than four decades, Chris has been one of the defining voices in beauty, creating some of the most recognizable looks in popular culture while building a career rooted in trust, creativity, and most importantly, the human connection. From the salon to editorial shoots, film sets, and now his very own hair care line, he spent a lifetime helping people feel like the best versions of themselves. Today, we're talking about growing up in California, building a business that's lasted four decades, balancing creativity with entrepreneurship, and how the places that we return to help define who we become. Welcome, Chris McMillan. Speaker 1 (1:11) Where are you? In Las Vegas. And I was just showing your team, Julie and Rob. I wore my pink Charvet shirt because... Speaker 3 (1:20) What do you think about Charvet? I Speaker 1 (1:22) can spend a half an hour at 11 o'clock at night looking at the windows alone. Speaker 3 (1:28) That area by the Ritz and like Charvet, I always think of you because that was like the first time that we ran into you again was like outside there. And you're the perfect baggy... Yeah, which I spent six months trying to track down. Shamelessly, they're called Speaker 1 (1:45) the biggies. Speaker 3 (1:46) They didn't look as good on me as they did. Let's just put it that way. Speaker 1 (1:49) Yeah, but most things that look good on you don't look good on me. Speaker 3 (1:53) The only thing that could make this interview better for me, just for the record, is if you are cutting my hair while we were doing it. Never tells me the truth. All right. So listen, I'm very excited to talk to you because I think of you as like the quintessential California boy. Speaker 1 (2:09) Grew up in Southern California, Manhattan Beach, California. Speaker 3 (2:12) Walk us through young Chris. What is that like growing up in Manhattan Beach? Speaker 1 (2:16) Let's give a summer day. Okay, bring it on. I have an older brother, younger brother, younger sister. We're all two years apart. There's Jeff, Chris, Mark, Lindsay. My mom basically started giving birth at 18 and finished at 24 and had four kids. Yeah, little beach mom, dad work mom. took care of kids. My dad, I'm obsessed with sailboats. So I kind of grew up in nature. I grew up, my mom was a tan, loved to get tan. She, her and her girlfriends did the same thing, had babies at 18 and they would read Vogue magazine and the gossip magazines on the beach. They would have Banda Soleil, Orange Jolet number four. slathered on their bodies. They would have, and they would basically put zinc oxide all over our faces and say, do not bother us for the next eight hours. No one paid attention. Nobody cared. Nobody was worried that I was going to be kidnapped. Nobody or my brothers. It was different. And we just played in the ocean and played on the beach. And if not, we walked ourselves. We lived about a half a mile from the beach. We walked at like seven years old to the beach. Me and my brother, Mark, who we were a little, the age gap closed. So he was my best friend, my brother, Mark. Did you like growing up there? I did. Then we moved to Palos Verdes. I guess we leveled up a little bit. And then my mom's asthmatic, so she had a really bad time breathing. So Palm Springs entered the picture. And when I was, yeah, when I was 12 years old. And so we had to move to Palm Springs. So from 12 to 18, those lucrative years. Learning what an interior designer is years in Palm Springs. Finding out who John Lautner was as an architect building the Bob Hope House. Learning what T. Allen King and Arthur Elrod and all these interior designers. And, you know, I guess there was a thing like next thing you know, I'm like 17, 18 years old and I'm working at Swenson's Ice Cream Shop and I realize what gay men are. So I didn't come out of the closet. It was just like Palm Springs is like an open door of closet. There's Speaker 3 (4:52) no closet. Yeah, Speaker 1 (4:53) there was. It was pretty seamless. And and my mom and my dad, believe it or not, for those like maybe you're not, you know, and I was like, really, mom, you know, I do your hair and watch General Hospital with you since we're 12. And my mom, by the way, wore my favorite hairstyle was Farrah Fawcett. but bleach blonde like Pamela Anderson. So my mom was like, she was a cross between Farrah Fawcett and Pamela Anderson in the hair. Speaker 3 (5:23) Looking back, do you feel like you were more, because I'm always fascinated with people, like how they got into their career and how they discovered like their passion and their talent. Were you more inspired by like fashion, music? You mentioned interiors. Was it people around you? I guess who first introduced you to this idea of beauty or personal style? Tom Speaker 1 (5:41) Ford always says, your first impression of something, those will stick with you forever. Those growing up years in Palm Springs and seeing those kind of houses and seeing fabulous women walking down the street. Because, you know, the weekend you go to Palm Springs and you pack, you know, those girls from L.A. are packing their favorites. And I was a pool boy at the Riviera Hotel as one of my jobs. because I swam on swim team. So being a pool boy at the swankiest hotel in Speaker 3 (6:18) Palm Springs, I can only imagine like Speaker 1 (6:21) I'm going to save your life. And I'm just observing humans all the time. It really is. It's like when we met in Paris, look left, look right, whatever's in front of you is going to be inspired. And I was just like a deer in the headlights and just absorbing. everything. And I did. I remember seeing a guy and I was like, God, I love your watch. And he goes, it's Rolex. And it cost $1,000. I was at the pro shop. Palm Springs really did weirdly kickstart in in high speed. I gravitated for the towards the nice stuff always. Did Speaker 3 (6:59) you know that you had a creative eye? Or is it something that you recognize later? Speaker 1 (7:03) I mean, I was nine years old, French braiding my sister's hair and blow drying my mom's bleach blonde hair better than the hairdresser. She would actually say, don't worry, you don't need to blow dry my hair. My son, he should be home from school by three o'clock. He's Speaker 3 (7:19) got Speaker 1 (7:19) it. He does it better than you guys. What made you pick up Speaker 3 (7:24) the brush or the blow dryer and start that? What was so appealing to you? Was it the fantasy of it or what you created? Speaker 1 (7:32) I'll never forget this. Like in the eighth grade or the ninth grade at Raymond Crete Junior High School in Palm Springs, there was a girl named Sharon Hawkins and her mom was a hairdresser and she was wearing bell bottoms and tube tops and Farrah Fawcett hair. And then Christmas break happened. And she came back from Christmas break and she had a perm. No. No bob. And she was wearing skinny, little skinny. So she all of a sudden went from like sexy rocker girl to new wave girl. And she was like the first new wave girl after Christmas break. And I was like. Kind of like in Fast Times at Ridgemont High when they're like, oh, we have three Pat Benatars at our school. And that was the girl that I was like, I like gravitated. So I became friends with these girls as gay men do. Why Speaker 3 (8:31) do you think you never left California? Speaker 1 (8:33) Because at 18, me and my brother immediately went to Paris. Of course, we went the route of New York. to Amsterdam and then train to Paris because it costs, I think, $125 round trip. And I got the bug of traveling really early. Like I'm independent and I'm going to go to Paris without even thinking. I guess you stay in youth hostels. I did it. And I learned how to take a train and I learned how to get on a plane. And it was easier than going to downtown LA. And I just remember. It was the travel. So I knew that. Whenever I told people when I traveled, I was from LA or I was from California, they always loved it because I remember they said, like, oh, Parisians and French, they're so mean. And they're like, oh, you are American. Where are you from? And I'm like, I'm from LA. Oh, my God, we love LA. So Speaker 3 (9:34) there was Speaker 1 (9:35) this sort of like LA-Paris connection. And for Saint Laurent, for Celine, there's this like. there's always in my head been this sort of like connection you know and parisian girls have sort of a when it's good in la and california it's good and they have there's a crossover i feel so true Speaker 3 (9:58) you're Speaker 1 (9:58) right there