Mark Weston – an English hair-stylist working in Prague

My guest on One on One is hair-stylist Mark Weston. When I visited his one-seat Salon Trichomania on Prague’s Anglická Street, he told me what brought him from his native country of England and his second home-town of Hamburg, Germany, to the Czech Republic. We talked about the hairstyles Czechs prefer and how that is changing but I began by asking him how he got interested in cutting and coloring hair in the first place.

“I started cutting hair when I was 20, some good 20 years ago. I started cutting friends’ hair and then I thought that an apprenticeship as a hairdresser might be a good idea.”

You spent a lot of time in Germany, where you learned the trade. What was your experience like there?

Mark Weston

“It’s actually very good, you spend a lot of time doing practical work and working with colleagues in a salon, as a hairdresser of course. So the salon is responsible for teaching you the craftsmanship side of the job, the cutting and coloring. So you automatically adapt to the style of the salon.

“And in addition, you have to go to school to learn the theoretical side of the job, the chemistry and the biology, how skin and hair are built up and everything like that.

“Obviously learning in the center of a large city, you also acquire a greater feeling for fashion and learn a different style than if you were working in a village, so it’s quite unique in terms of what the training can go.

And what brought you to the Czech Republic? That’s quite a leap from working in Hamburg.

“I was in Hamburg for quite a while. I worked there for 18 years as a hairdresser. Basically, I got to the point where everything was very nice and very comfortable, and it could have gone on like that for ages, but that didn’t seem very tempting to me.

“It seemed much more interesting to make a change and go somewhere else. Where life would be different again, before I decided to settle down and open my own salon. I was looking at a few different cities that weren’t too far away from Hamburg, because I wanted to keep in touch with friends and clients there.

Photo: www.trichomania.com

“And Prague seemed to be a very good choice, in terms of its atmosphere and in terms of my style being different from the working style of local hairdressers. It’s been a great choice and it’s been working out nicely so far.”

Is there anything in particular that Czechs like, any hairstyles or colors that seem very popular here?

“One the one hand, it’s one of those things that foreigners make a lot of jokes about, and I don’t think that’s necessarily very nice. But you do see a lot of experimental cuts and colors and that sort of thing on the streets here.”

What were some of the worst hairstyles you’ve seen since you started living here?

“The worst ones very often boil down to the least clean ones. What most people laugh about is the unwashed factor. So people tend to laugh when they see someone on the metro or the tram and it’s very obvious that they haven’t used shampoo in quite a while.”

Is the perm still popular here or is it disappearing?

“Fortunately, it’s not very popular anymore. That used to be pretty widespread, but not many people perm their hair nowadays.”

What about the mullet, a hairstyle that the famous Czech hockey player Jaromír Jágr was quite fond of for a while. Are Czech men moving away from the mullet?

Photo: www.trichomania.com

“I hope so, yes. I think they’re starting to go for shorter haircuts more. But it’s still surprising how many men with long hair you see here. I was once told actually, by a young Czech man who had just cut his long hair, that it was a relict from Communism, that it was considered non-conformist and a sign of protest back then. He said that’s where the popularity of the hairstyle might come from.

“But nowadays, it’s less popular. I think more men shave their hair themselves, using clippers at home. Or their girlfriends and wives cut their hair fairly short, that’s becoming pretty popular now.”

How is Prague doing in terms of hair fashion compared to other major European cities? Do trends from other parts of Europe make it here?

“Definitely, and it’s something that’s developing more. A lot of hairdressers here look to England, especially to London, for ideas. Because the international names like Toni and Guy and Vidal Sassoon are becoming more well-known to local hairdressers as well, and they copy the styles they see.

“And the internet is also a great source of transformation and information. So you can pick up on what’s going on in other places in the world and adapt it. I’ve spoken to a few local hairdressers who told me that they do look to international names for training and seminars. And they put those styles on their clients’ heads to show that they are up-to-date and fashionable.”

You opened your own salon on Anglická Street here in Prague a year ago, and you have a very special philosophy when it comes to cutting hair but also in terms of running a business. Can you tell me a bit about that?

Photo: www.trichomania.com

“It’s quite a simple idea. It boils down to the fact that there are hundreds of salons in Prague already, and there isn’t really a need for another salon in Prague, unless it’s different. It’s easy to understand if you compare it to restaurants. If all restaurants in the city are offering Italian food, it doesn’t make much sense to open a new Italian place. But if you say, hey, I am opening a new restaurant, and it’s a Sushi restaurant, that’s a different story.

“It’s the same with salons. They are not all the same. Some specialize in different things, or offer services that others don’t, or they have a different way of going about it. Or different products they work with.

“So opening another salon, it was quite important to me to be different and unique and try to do as many things differently as other salons.”

Can you pick out maybe two things that you do differently to give us an idea of what that entails?

“First of all, I try to have a different work style. I am very focused on cutting and coloring techniques – those are the only two things that I offer in the salon, which in itself is unusual because a lot of salons here have cosmetic services, manicures, pedicures, even tanning beds and massages.

“So that’s the first thing that stands out. I don’t consider myself a stylist, so I don’t even do wedding up-styles or other up-dos, because my expertise lies in cutting and coloring.

Photo: www.trichomania.com

“The other thing is that you have the salon for yourself when you’re here. So it’s an unusual situation, because the hairdresser and you are alone in the salon and I can fully focus on one person. I have different products, color ranges and shampoos that no one else carries. And then it’s the little things, for example that we have a chair that is not a typical hair cutting chair, or that I play records on a record player while I am cutting.

What was an interesting experience you’ve had in your salon, or the nicest compliment you’ve received from a customer?

“I suppose one of the nicest things that can happen is just to be recommended by somebody. If someone phones you and tells you that a friend of theirs recently got a haircut from you and they liked it so much that they asked about it and decided to get an appointment themselves. Or all the nice reviews on the internet, that kind of stuff are extremely satisfying.”