Award-winning global artist and Aveda's top creative force, Antoinette Beender, has released Astral 2.0, the anticipated follow-up collection to her revolutionary AI-fusion project, Astral.
The collection continues Beenders' futuristic collaboration with multidisciplinary artist Ed Maximus, again blending AI imagery with live models and 3D hairstyles to create a dreamlike, ethereal world.
"Astral 2.0, draws inspiration from the enigmatic realm of out-of-body experiences," says Astral 2.0's artistic statement.
"With a bold mission to redefine the boundaries of hair design, Beenders seamlessly intertwines cutting-edge artistry and technology. She ingeniously employs AI-generated imagery for every facet of the collection, except for the model's face and hair."
“With Astral 2.0, I wanted to push the boundaries of what’s possible in hair artistry," says Beenders, the Senior Vice President of Professional Global Artistry for Aveda.
"This collection is all about exploring uncharted territory—playing with textures, dimensions, and forms that feel both futuristic and deeply expressive," she says. "It’s about breaking free from convention and creating something truly otherworldly.”
Astral 2.0 crafts precise, three-dimensional architectural shapes. The collection builds on Beenders' innovative "ridge" clamping technique to sculpt hair, originally developed for Iris van Herpen's Haute Couture Fall-Winter 2023-24 show in Paris
Beenders more recently used this technique at New York Fashion Week, creating a striking, celestial-inspired hair look for designer Bad Binch TongTong.
"Beenders transcends traditional hair design, propelling her creations into an alternate dimension with a strong emphasis on three-dimensional hair," the artistic statement says. "Her vision mirrors the aesthetics of rounded architecture, beautifully capturing its gentle contours and fluidity."
