Amir X has a lot riding on the success of Monday night’s Hair & Beauty Show.

He organised the event for the Bermuda Fashion Festival and brought in some big names for support — South African fashion designer Gavin Rajah, actor Darrin Dewitt Henson and the stars of popular television show BORN To Style.

To add to his stress, Nigerian model Aminat Ayinde and Broadway dancer Jermaine Rowe are among the famous faces who’ve been invited to the sold-out event.

Needless to say the production has taken a lot of work to put together.

According to Amir X, he’s gone without much sleep for months.

“Planning for this show started back in December,” he said. “I don’t leave my office until 3am every morning.

“My assistant, Jahleea Ible-Burchall, has been catching the last bus home every night and we’ve been living and working like this for the past three months straight.

“We’re giving this all we’ve got and want the message that comes across through the Hair & Beauty Show and the Bermuda Fashion Festival to be powerful. We want people to leave with a stronger desire to celebrate life.”

Amir X volunteered at last year’s hair show.

He did such a good job helping Impressions Hair Artistry, he was hired to run the entire show this time around.

“To take it to the next level I’ve asked a few of my friends to join in and lend their talents to the event for the week,” he said.

“A lot of the individuals coming I’ve worked with in the past or share agents with overseas.”

Veteran entertainer Patricia Nesbitt has been instrumental to the show — as have a handful of CedarBridge Academy students who’ve built the set and will be braiding the models’ hair.

Amir X said the models will be styled creatively “from head to toe” as part of the theatrical event.

“We’ve focused on everything from hair to make up and clothes — the entire image.

“When it comes to the hair, myself and Jahleea created hairstyles that might appear to be impossible to wear or imagine. They are made out of glass, iron, mirrors and ceramics.

“Gino Productions has invested lots of time, lots of money and requested lots of support to give this entire beauty show the great send-off and opening for the Bermuda Fashion Festival that it deserves. It’s a collective effort with all the associate producers that [the City of Hamilton’s] Danilee Trott has hired and it makes it so much more than a show. It’s an experience.”

He’s hoping the event puts Bermuda on the fashion map.

“We will also be going horseback riding and on a glass bottom boat and will experience our Island, so [Darrin Dewitt Henson] can go back to Hollywood and say ‘Bermuda is the place to be’. I wanted to get people ‘in the know’ to experience Bermuda so they could go back to their areas and tell people about what they saw and did in Bermuda.”

Jamaican models will fly in for the show; Aminat Ayinde has also been spreading the word about it in her fashion circles.

“Aminat’s actually from Nigeria, but she’s a celebrity personality that’s tied to lots of international brands, so when she told everyone where she was going it created a buzz from South Africa to Paris and all the way here,” Amir X said.

“When you are a relevant person in the fashion industry people want to know what you’re doing through social media. So when people like her say, ‘I’m going to Bermuda’, that creates social currency, which makes us more relevant than the Caribbean islands that we actually compete with. I have gotten e-mails from very big people in Paris so more doors could possibly open up in the future.”

Amir X said he wants people to leave feeling “lifted, inspired, enlightened and free”.

“Living in such a small place it doesn’t allow individuals to sincerely be who they are,” he said.

“Events like this allow them to have a moment.

“I want them to able to relate to at least one of the scenes and really escape from it all and become uninhibited for even just a short time. I want this to be a space where people come without judgement and come and be exactly who they are.”

•The Hair & Beauty Show kicks off at 7.30pm at the Earl Cameron Theatre. Visit www.bermudafashionfestival.com.