Petra Mechurova – first woman ever to win the AIPP Grand Trophy

Release Date: 13/04/2009

Bologna, April 13 2009 – The Czech hairstylist Petra Mechurova was crowned absolute champion at the last edition of the AIPP Grand Trophy becoming the first woman to win the most coveted award in the hairdressing industry worldwide. Mechurova won over X-Presion (Spain) who came in second and Tom Co. (Germany) who took third, so gaining the recognition of the international press. The awards ceremony was held Sunday April 5th at Cosmoprof Worldwide in Bologna (Italy), during the exclusive Tribu-te Show at Teatro Manzoni. The ceremony was presented by AIPP President Roberto Pissimiglia, who also welcomed on stage the winners of the AIPP Best Video Award in its first edition: Klaus Peter Ochs (Germany) awarded for the Best Promotional Video and Pelsynera (Spain) awarded for the Best Inspirational Video. All winners –both Petra Mechurova, Klaus Peter Ochs & Pelsynera– admitted to be very moved and proud to be recognized by the editors of the best professional magazines in the world and shared the ideas that inspired their winning collections with the audience.

With this sought-after acknowledgement Petra Mechurova joins the important list of AIPP Trophy winners on which shine the names of the best stylists in the world:

1997-1998 Joan Anglada (Spain)

1998-1999 Jean-Claude Gallon (France)

1999-2000 Anthony Whitaker (Australia)

2000-2001 Andrew Collinge (UK)

2001-2002 Trevor Sorbie (UK)

2002-2003 Charlie Miller (UK)

2003-2004 Trevor Sorbie (UK)

2004-2005 Errol Douglas (UK)

2005-2006 Tono Sanmartín (Spain)

2006-2007 Robert Lobetta (USA)

2007-2008 Tom Kroboth (Austria)

2008-2009 Petra Mechurova (Czech Republic)

And now the starting bell for the new edition, AIPP Awards 2009-2010!!! Hundreds of hairdressers around the world are already preparing their dossiers with their spring-summer collections to compete in one of the five categories at the first stage of the prize: Best Commercial Hairstyle, Best Avant-Garde Hairstyle, Best Photography, Best Men’s Hairstyle and Best Video, a category that, as of this year, will reward the best video-clips presenting new trends and collections (max. 3 minutes).

The deadline for receiving the collections is June 30 2009.