Fall is officially upon us. The weather in New York is hesitant to make the jump: Saturday was 80 degrees and humid; Sunday was ominously cloudy and chilly. What better time, I thought, than now...to go brunette! Forgive me for succumbing to seasonal color-change stereotypes, but I just had to cross back over to the dark side (my natural terrain). I linked up with Mauricio Bermudez, superstar colorist Laurie Foley's newest recruit at L'Atelier de Laurie, and spent my morning slowly transitioning from grown-out highlights to a rich, coffee-colored mane.

Stepping into the East Village, ground-level salon is a bit like visiting your kooky English grandmother: busts, urns, trellises, and cabinets of curiosities fill every square foot of the room, so much so that you can't help but wonder, 'where's the sink?' But then you notice a frame displaying Laurie's handiwork on models Olga Sherer and Vlada Roslyakova and you realize that this is a very modern place indeed. Anytime an agency wants to reinvent a girl via hair color, chances are, she winds up at L'Atelier de Laurie. “We believe it's important to create our shapes, sculpt our designs, and then paint them' Mauricio says of his cut and foil-free-color technique. “I get a complete grasp of the hair with each individual project: the length, the shape, and ultimately, the color. Most great artists sculpted and painted; they worked in different mediums, and that's how we see it.” Having trained under Orlando Pita at Orlo salon, Mauricio worked with a self-assured focus that made me feel totally comfortable immersing myself in the latest issue of Allure, rather than checking in with the mirror (there should really be a term for salon/manicure/pedicure anxiety). Three hours and a head full of hand-painted locks later, I had not become an au courant catwalker, but felt pretty snazzy nonetheless.