Mister MAHOGANY

by Hair's How

When you start with nothing — not even a love for hairdressing — how do you rise to the top of the hairdressing world with salons, academies and a worldwide following? The editor of HAIR'S HOW gets to the bottom of how Richard Thompson got to the top!

“YOU NEED TO LEARN FROM THE BEST TO BE THE BEST AND STAY AT THE TOP.”

Young people today say they want to go into hairdressing because they feel you are ‘in it´ from the beginning. Do you agree with that?

No, I don´t agree with that. I compare learning to be a great hairdresser to being a clown on a tightrope. That clown has to learn the basics perfectly before he can start to experiment on the tightrope and fool around on that tightrope. If you start being too adventurous and experimental too early, then you´re going to fall off. And when you fall off, it´s hard to pick yourself up again. So, the hardest thing to learn when you first go into hairdressing is discipline. You have to let someone teach you that discipline over many years. In England, it takes three years to do an apprenticeship and then another two years of just keeping your head down doing clients. That is what gives you that experience you need. With hairdressing, you´ve got to learn the standards for quite a long time to prefect them. It took me a long time to realize that.

Why did you choose this profession and how did you get into it?

I´m not from a wealthy background. I´m from an average area of Manchester and I really wanted to be an architect! From 14 to 16 years old I worked as an apprentice in a salon on weekends for pocket money. I got into that world at a very young age and luckily it happened to be the best salon in Manchester. But once I was out of school, my parent´s couldn´t afford to put me through college for seven years to be an architect. So, because I´d been doing hairdressing and because I´d been doing the work on Saturdays, I was offered a full-time position at the salon. I couldn´t cut hair yet, but I could blow-dry, color, and shampoo. Plus, it was a great way to meet girls! So, I just fell into it. I was very lucky that it was a good salon because in this industry it´s about ‘who´ is training you. You need to learn from the best to be the best and stay at the top. And, you´re only as good as that last haircut that walks out the door!

What is the story of Mahogany?

Mahogany started as one salon after I left London. In 1979 I decided, after getting married actually, I wanted a salon in London, but at that time I couldn´t afford it. So we went to the nearest named city instead, which was Oxford. It was a beautiful city where my new wife and I could start a family. So we planned a beautiful little salon in central Oxford that would be the most expensive salon in central Oxford. That was a very naive idea because back in 1979 I had been charging 12 or 14 pounds for a haircut in the big city, but what were we going to charge at the new place? I called up all the local Oxford salons to see what they were charging and the most expensive in Oxford was only charging little more than four pounds. I wasn´t even going to get out of bed for that! So we opened this little salon of about 1000 square feet and we charged around eight pounds, which I thought was cheap. But we charged more and it was successful! Then we opened the second salon very quickly. When one of the original guys from the first salon got married and wanted to live in Bath, which is an hour away, we just opened a salon there. Then, we opened a third salon in Oxford. It was a bigger, better salon around the corner from that original salon which was falling apart by that time. We were going to close it, but since the only people who wanted to buy the original salon were hairdressers, instead of allowing the competition, I just kept it going, too! Then we opened the Sydney salon after that.

After many years on the road doing shows and seminars we had a following on a worldwide basis. It was a big enough following to open the Academy. London is very expensive to come to and so the following has got to be very strong to make people want to come back. But it takes a lot of hard work to build all of that! I love to offer those people who love what we do to be a part of our world and come back to the academy and actually learn what we do. It gives me a whole reason to be!

The next logical step was to open a salon in Manchester as well. From the client point of view, we´re servicing England and from the educational point of view we have the academy to service the hairdressing world that wants to be part of it. The idea is that you can take those ideas and make money. That´s when I´ve done my job. You should have that inspiration — that you can make money out of it.

How did you come up with the name ‘Mahogany?´

When I was training to be a hairdresser in the early 70´s, I was a total hippie. Henna was very popular and I was really into using henna and mixing henna — with tea, with coffee...with everything! There weren´t the henna products like today. There was only the real henna and with real henna you could only do red. But, if you mix it with strong coffee, it will go brown-red. If you mix it with tea it will go a lighter red. So basically, I got into this whole thing of mixing henna when I was training. At the time obviously, henna wasn´t massively commercial, but permanent color was but I wasn´t being trained on color, I was being trained on hair cuts. So, I was into the henna thing and everything was shades of mahogany. So, because of that, they used to call me ‘Mr. Mahogany.´ So, when we opened the salon, we needed a name. I didn´t want ‘Richard Thompson´ because every client walking in would ask for Richard Thompson and that would take something away. I also wanted a generic name so I chose ‘Mahogany.´ Not only for the color, but I wanted people to feel as though they belonged to a special club. I wanted a women´s version of a gentleman´s club and Mahogany fit with that.

What was your aim in the beginning?

For the first time in my life, I´ve finally gotten where I wanted to get at the beginning! When I started, I actually thought that I would actually get there 10 or 15 years sooner than how it has happened. I realized over the years that I needed the experience that I´ve got now to actually get what I wanted. It was in those middle years that I actually thought that I should have had the experience and the ability that I have now.

Is it hard to stay at the top? How do you do it?

Yes! It´s hard to stay at the top — but I never think I am at the top! I think if you have a passion for it, it comes from the heart. Sometimes I am aware that I do some things better than others. But, I think the hardest thing to do is be able to admit when you´ve failed and have to start again. To have that fallibility is what keeps you wanting to do the next thing. And, it´s wanting to do the next thing that keeps you ahead of it.

It has been said that hairdressing in the UK is like a club. How do you break in?

The Fellowship for British Hairdressing is the biggest kind of club for hairdressing in the UK. The most famous British hairdressers belong to this Fellowship, so if you join the Fellowship, you can get to meet your peers at events. In the UK that´s how you become part of it. And it´s very difficult for the people from outside the UK. Although things like the ‘Alternative´ show do allow people the chance to meet people from all over the world. It´s actually presenting yourself in the right way so the industry takes you seriously really. It´s about your passion, your energy, your commitment and then, wherever you are in the world, you do get to meet everybody from around the world. I mean, I now know the main hairdressers from everywhere. There was a time when I opened my first salon that I didn´t know anybody in the UK. I certainly didn´t know anybody in the world. I knew the people I trained with and worked with and now I probably know every main hairdresser from every main company and they know me. When those iconic hairdressers from all over the world talk to me, it´s great. But, it takes years. You have to stay sincere and loyal to your commitment. If you´ve got the energy, the passion, and the commitment, it does happen.

How do you keep clients?

By making them feel special — whoever they are. For the 45 minutes that they´re in your chair, you make them feel like they´re the most important person in the world. Whether that´s from a caring point of view or doing a fabulous haircut or whether the only thing you are to them is the consistency in their life. Maybe they´ve been coming to you for 25 years and they´ve been through two divorces — you´re one of the consistencies in their life. I´ve heard their problems, I´ve seen their children grow up!

How did you create your team?

That´s been really about education, style, and philosophy. It´s those people that are actually around you that want and believe what you believe. And they believe what they do is worthwhile. They want to be with you.

What is your philosophy?

It´s all that I´ve been talking about in this interview. Have passion, energy, and believe in the beauty of what you do. Believe in the commitment, the work ethic, and the professionalism to give it all you´ve got. There´s a famous poem that says something like, ‘love like you´ve never been loved, work like there´s no tomorrow, and dance like nobody´s watching.´ I think that is actually my philosophy. That´s how I want to live. It´s caring about what you do. Caring about other people. It´s believing in a technique, a style, and pursuing that to the ‘nth´ degree so that you create your own happiness out of that.

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