CHAPTER 26:

During this period Hairdressers Journal took over Modern Barber Magazine and took Barbering into the mainstream. They had their first Barbering stage at the annual Salon event & for the first time in all my years of the trade, men’s Hairdressing training was taken seriously. As the host of their stage, Edward was able to get a real connection again with the Barbering industry.

For many years until the early Noughties we were the only Private route into Barbering training. In the main our students came from the Cypriot community in London, both Greek & Turkish. There was a sudden explosion of Barbering Education from 2010 onwards, some good but in the main, mostly bad! Thankfully it now felt that at last standards were being put in place & now Barbering is recognised as a major part of our industry in its’ own right.

In April 2017 we employed our first, strictly Barbering only, trainer. In fact, Claudio was originally trained as a Ladies hairdresser at Toni & Guy but eventually he converted to barbering only. At some point before joining us he closed his own business & has been with us ever since, building a clientele for our students in London as well as operating one day a week at our Ipswich Hair School.

We will talk more about Barbering & the fact that men’s hair grew longer over the Covid lockdown (But that’s another chapter).