And the winners are ...

The TONI&GUY 15th Annual Photographic Awards are gearing up to start and the energy is high here at The W Hotel Hollywood!

This is a significant evening every year for TONI&GUY, where we honor the work of our stylists and student stylists, as well as look to the next year's advanced collection of cuts, colours and styles. Stylists from salons and academies across the United States are competing for accolades in 12 categories -- Editorial, Total Look, Cut, Colour, Fantasy, Student, Mens, Best Academy Team, Best Salon Team, Make-up, Colourist of the Year and Hairdresser of the Year.

Excitement builds outside the awards room as stylists wait in line to have their photograph taken with TONI&GUY CEO Bruno Mascolo and President Kenny Gibson, enjoya photo booth and select a momento of the event in the form a T-shirt emblazoned with a Photographic Awards design as they wait. Seasoned veterans mingle with TONI&GUY Hairdressing Academy students in a vivid kalidoscope of brightly coloured cocktail dresses, blinged-out accessories and expressive hairstyles.

Maicey Manley, a garduating senior from the Colorado Springs TONI&GUY Hairdressing Academy, described the scene as simultaneously inspiring and overwhelming.

"RIght now it is very overwhelming with all the beautiful and creative people," Manley said prior to the awards ceremony, adding that being around so many talented people makes her proud to be a member of the TONI&GUY family. "It confirms that I'm doing what I want to do and what I should be doing."

The 29-year-old traveled to L.A. from Colorado to support her instructors, but said she would have attended even if she did not know any of the finalists.

"I just want the inspiration," Manley said, adding that she is awed at being able to interact even briefely with Bruno and Anthony Mascolo. "They care about each and every one of us, including the students and including me, and where each of us ends up and how we grow."

Tonight also marks the release of the "Reflective" collection, a collection based on the strength and individualism of past TONI&GUY collections.

The purpose of the "Reflective" collection was to focus on simplifying advanced TONI&GUY terminology to make it easier to translate cutting and colouring techniques to clients and to advanced students.

"We just wanted to simplify things," said Laurabeth Wilson, a stylist at the Northpark salon in Dallas and an Art Team member. "Our whole concept was to simplify it so you can have a direct interpretation."

This desire to be purveyors of clear, pure and excellent education within the hairdressing industry is a vision echoed by Bruno Mascolo. During his opening address, he encouraged the stylists present to use the Photographic Awards to continue inspiring themselves and each other so they in turn could deliver an exceptional experience to their clients.

"The idea of the awards is not that somebody wins and somebody loses," Mascolo said. "The idea of the awards is to inspire ourselves so we compete with ourselves to do better and better every year."

Mascolo stressed his family's more than 25-year-old dream of coming to America and establishing what he called a really great hairdressing company. With the focus of TONI&GUY USA shifting to more strongly illuminate the academies and salons, he said the future of TONI&GUY is to continue to embody that passion of sculpting works of art out of hair -- on the runway and in a salon.

"The ability of having the skills to cut hair and colour hair only goes to a certain point," Mascolo said. "A stylists needs to be able to interprest fashion and interpret a client's lifestlye to create a look that is suitable and adaptable for each individual client in order to create the best experience possible for that client.

"An evening like tonight is very inspiring because we can capture our creativity. We can put it on a picture and it becomes ours," Mascolo said. "It's really being an artist."

Watch toniguy.com throughout the evening for updates on winners and the new collection!