Do the "Do"
because a cut is not a style
Over the last three
decades hair styling industry has undergone a vast change in it's
outlook and approach toward styling. Prior to 1970 you would have
been hard pressed to find a handful of haircutters. Now however,
the opposite is quite true, most stylists who have been in the
industry less than ten years know very little about
"styling" hair. Most stylists today would say that they
learned to cut hair because that's what the styles dictate. While
there may be some truth to this, the reasons are not so simple or
obvious.
The result of this
shift is that now in order for a stylist to have a thriving
business they need 500 clients where they once only required 50.
Why? When stylists focused mainly on combing and styling hair
clients returned on a weekly basis to have their hair done. A
stylist with 50 weekly clients was busy about 50 hours a week.
Now, a stylist who cuts hair must maintain a much larger client
base to stay that busy (if you cut each person once every six
weeks, and you can cut one person every thirty minutes that's a
minimum of 480 clients). So, why did stylists want to make their
work so much more difficult?
the economic
origins of hair cutting
The primary reason
most stylists today focus on cutting, color, and perms instead of
styling has almost nothing to do with wanting to work harder, it's
rooted in the economics of the cosmetology school industry. Prior
to the nineteen seventies there were very few schools, and very
few chain salons. The salon industry was mostly a cottage industry
run by mom and pop operators, with a few stylists working with
them for a percentage of their sales. There was not a great demand
for hairstylists. Then came "Fantastic Sam's," the
McDonald's of hair salons, and first nationwide chain of
haircutting shops.
Why was this an
important development? There were other chains, mostly in
department stores, and some independent salon chains, but they
were limited in size and reach. In other words, they were few in
number and limited to a small geographical area. Their limited
impact didn't increase demand for new hairstylists. On the other
hand, the emergence of national chains of haircutting salons
did.
These salons were
located in strip centers and malls instead of "Betty's
Garage" or a department store. Their visibility alone
increased demand by consumers. New customers, mainly men, began to
visit "unisex" shops with more frequency. Consequently
this put a strain on the available workforce that was not prepared
or trained to deal with these new customers.
schools needed
more students
Where were these
new stylists going to come from? The beauty schools that existed
at the time were just as unprepared to deal with this new demand
as the salons. Schools were scrambling for teachers who knew
anything about cutting hair. There just weren't many. It would
take some insightful people, a talented barber, an architect, and
a movie to put all the forces in motion that would change the way
most hairstylists learned, and thought about, doing hair.
product
companies needed to sell products
Add to this mix a
couple of product companies that were struggling to develop their
concepts and find their niche, and all the ingredients that were
needed to cook up a new recipe for success in the salon industry
were assembled.
Most stylist won't
remember this but Jheri Redding was one of the first
stylist/product entrepreneurs to hit the scene with Jheri Redding
products back in the 50's. His organization and the people
associated with it have affected dozens of major professional
product lines, teaching systems, hair styles, and have left a
lasting impression on the salon industry. Some of these people
went on to work with Vidal Sassoon who is almost single-handedly
responsible for the largest shift in the industry paradigm for
success in the past half-century.
history of the bouffant
hair styles
Most stylists know
that Sassoon popularized the idea that "the cut is the style,
" but how many know why bouffant hairstyles became popular in
the first place? Well for the answer to that you have to go back
to the thirties and forties the time of the Great Depression,
bootleg beer, bathtub gin, and war looming on the horizon.
During this time
hair styling was largely a kitchen business. There weren't many
salons, the ones there were catered mainly to the wealthy, and
most people combed their own hair into fingerwaves and pincurls.
Stylists didn't have to be licensed, and schooling wasn't a
requirement, consequently there was not a big demand for
cosmetology schools.
Schools needed a
way to attract more students and licensing was the answer to that,
but where were all those students going to apply their trade, in
their kitchen? Stylists during this time faced a similar problem
as today, they needed a way to get a larger number of people into
the salon, or they needed a way to get the people who were already
visiting the salon to come back more often. Considering the
economics of the time it probably seemed more likely that people
who were already visiting the salon would return more often if
they had sufficient reason to do so.
It was during the
fifties that the National Styles Committee of the NHCA (now the
NCA) developed the concept of bouffant hairstyling. These styles
were based on a French technique of interlacing hair called
coiffing (hence the term Coiffeur for hairstyles was born). The
beauty of this technique was that the client could not do it
themselves, which meant if you wanted to be "in style"
you had to visit your local hairstylist to have it done for you.
So, why did stylist stray from this successful formula?
why we changed
For the answer to
that we have to go back in time five paragraphs to the sixties and
Vidal Sassoon. Sassoon was an enterprising barber with visions of
world domination. He wasn't a great stylist, but he was a great
haircutter. In order to promote himself he looked for a niche he
could fill. The sixties were a great time of change in the world
especially in America and Britain. "Mod" was IN and mod
clothing looked just a little weird with some of the bouffant
styles.
Schools just didn't
have the tools to turn out haircutters. There was no system for
them to follow. One of Sassoon's artistic directors, a young man
named Paul Mitchell, working with an architect, developed a method
of representing hairstyles as two dimensional drawings and a
system for teaching stylists how to cut according to a plan.
That's all the schools needed to churn out thousands of newly
trained haircutters creating a wave of change that would sweep
over the world of professional styling and fashion like a
tsunami.
That's how it
started. If you look at the early sixties most of the styling was
still backcombed, but that was before Mia Farrow and
"Rosemary's Baby." Mr. Sassoon got the job of cutting
Ms. Farrow's hair for the film, and on top of this he managed to
get his name worked into the film's script. The movie was controversial,
which was the greatest thing that could ever have happened to Mr.
Sassoon. The film took the heat for it's subject matter but
EVERYONE was talking about Sassoon and Mia's cut.
He must have struck
a chord because women flocked to salons demanding Mia's cut. It
was cute, but more than anything it was simple. The cut WAS the
style, and women looking for freedom found a new freedom in this
type of non-styling, and a champion of that freedom in Vidal Sassoon. The rest
is pretty much common knowledge, Sassoon turned the styling world
on it's ear and bouffant styling died a not so natural death. Dorothy
Hamill nailed the lid on the coffin with her wedge haircut during
the 1976 Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria. Cosmetology
schools, armed with the tools they needed to turn out mass
quantities of haircutters, dug the hole where bouffant
styling would be laid to rest.
what we lost
Sassoon may have
won the hearts and minds of women everywhere but in doing so the
styling profession lost it's foothold in the fashion world.
Clothing styles changed more often than the weather in Texas, and
the new cuts were the rage with designers. Bouffant hair was out
and has never returned. That's not to say it's a bad thing bouf
do's are gone, just that all the benefits of weekly visits left with them.
Some of those benefits are being realized today with the advent of
coloring as a salon staple. In the time vs money struggle stylists
wage today, color seems a pretty sure bet as the tool salons need
to keep clients returning on a more frequent basis.
why we need to
change now
Coloring does
require greater knowledge and skill to perform successfully, but
with the availability of color on supermarket shelves clients are
going to perform this service for themselves at home. This leaves
stylists and salons vulnerable to the fickle nature of consumer perception
of economic conditions. If a client thinks they need to save money
they'll probably be the first to grab the Preference and head for
the kitchen sink.
how can we get
clients back more often
So the challenge
stylists and salons face today is how to attract 500 clients for
each stylist in the salon, or
how to get the clients that currently visit to return more often. We put the
challenge to you the salon professional, what do you think the
answer is? How can you as a professional stylist get your clients
to sit in your chair more often? We have a couple of ideas that we
will be presenting over the following weeks. Stay tuned and keep
styling!
