Political conflicts and traumas do not simply disappear: they leave an aftertaste. The US declared victory in Afghanistan in 2001, but the battles continue to this day – and attacks are on the rise as elections approach (scheduled for fall 2004). Women's rights have been written into the new constitution, but girls' schools are still being bombed, as are buses carrying workers seeking to register women voters. Economic development, distributed across the board, is one weapon against fundamentalist rebels and "warlords." Women who support their families financially earn freedom and respect.

Sixty percent of Afghan women are widows, many with children to support. The literacy rate for women is fourteen percent. Hairdressing is a skill that can be learned relatively quickly and for which there is an apparently insatiable demand. By opening salons, women become economically self-sufficient while helping others celebrate their newly won freedom from the burka. This is the surprisingly solid foundation of what seems at first like a crazy idea.

The school came into being because of a 2001 profile in Vogue magazine. The subject was a 73-year old American named Mary MacMakin, who worked with women in Kabul until she was arrested by the Taliban and expelled. While being photographed for Vogue, MacMakin met a stylist named Terri Grauel; and when the Taliban lost power and MacMakin returned to Kabul, Grauel contacted her and asked what she could do to help. MacMakin suggested a beauty school.

The idea that the pursuit of beauty is an element of democracy and nation building made the school an attractive prospect for beauty-industry philanthropists. Vogue editor Anna Wintour rallied the industry. Funds were raised, products were donated, and "Beauty Without Borders" was born.

The Americans were horrified by the state of hairdressing in Kabul. Salons lack basic safety and sanitation, and hairdressers teach themselves from magazines and posters that are several years old. "They don't have any technique whatsoever," observed Grauel after her first visit. Foreigners never frequent Afghan salons: they get their hair done in Dubai or on trips home, rather than spreading the wealth in Kabul where it is badly needed.

Patricia O'Connor, school's executive director and a marketing consultant in New York, sees the school's mission as part of a bigger picture. "Beauty is a part of every culture," she says. "It's passed from generation to generation, through weddings and celebra-tions, all over the world." Needless to say, not everyone agrees. The school represents everything the Taliban opposed - not least because it is funded by Western corpora-tions. Even with the Taliban gone, opposition to changing women's status remains fierce. Whatever else one might think of them there is no denying that the women
who take part in the first classes are a brave and determined group.

Liz Mermin started pursuing a documentary about the beauty school in the fall of 2003, when the concept was still coming together. She got to know the beauty school team in New York and on a scouting trip in the spring of 2004, and then brought her crew over to Kabul with the teachers in the summer of 2004 to document the first session of the school in its entirety. To ensure full access and a basic comfort level with the students, Mermin assembled a team of women. The director and crew spent 10 weeks in Kabul, building up trust on camera and off and documenting the subtle transformations and amusing cultural exchanges that took place over three intense months.