Congratulations to Clipso London, who have been successfully shortlisted in the London salon category of the Hair magazine Hair Awards 2010. Readers will now judge the salon. A massive well done to Darren Fowler and his Clipso London team we wish them the best of luck.

Clipso Hemel Hempstead raised £600 at the Fusion Fashion Show which they held on Sunday 20^th June at the Waterside in Hemel Hempstead. All money raised will go to the Great Ormond Street’s HAIRaising charity.

Great Ormond Streets HAIRaising charity is a new nationwide fundraising appeal within the hairdressing industry for Great Ormond Street children’s hospital, set up to raise over £1million towards new operating theatres and help children from all over the country who require specialist neurosurgery.

Ian Ward salon owner from Clipso Hemel Hempstead said “it was a fantastic evening, many people from the community attended helping the event to be very successful and raise the money for this great charity”. The evening included a fashion show presented by Clipso, styling by Devoted to Vintage and Manhattan, raffle and a DJ and music afterwards.

The Clipso salon in Watford is showing their community spirit by sponsoring a team of female swimmers as they train for a challenging feat to swim a two way crossing of the English Channel departing from Dover in July, a total of 22 miles.

This task is all in aid of two charities close to the hearts of two of the girls taking part. Kirsty, Rebecca, Mandy, Rebecca, Hannah, Carolyn and Tillie are all raising money for  Malaria No More UK (a new charity set up to help prevent and support Malaria sufferers, saving hundreds of lives each year) and The Hope Foundation a charity which supports street children in Calcutta, India.

All six competitors and Carolyn (Reserve) have undergone a gruelling training programme including a 2 hour non-stop qualifying swim off the coast of Dover.  The team have also been preparing themselves for the cold temperatures in the sea, by bathing themselves in ice!

The team have achieved tremendous support locally, alongside Clipso’s swimsuit donation; companies such as Zoggs, Europa Quality Print and Cherry Active have been involved too. The charity campaign has also seen the team receive a 'shout out' on Radio One recently.

“We heard about this great fundraising event as one of the team has been visiting Clipso with her parents since she was a child and we’re always keen to show our support locally.  We wish them the best of luck next month,” explains Russell McGrath, Clipso salon manager.

To sponsor the team and your chosen charity, visit the website below

www.channelswim.weebly.com

We wish them the best of luck

Again huge congratulations to the St Albans salon who are finalists in The Sapphires business award in the Best Use of Technology category sponsored by Salon Genius……best of luck to them as well.

Huge congratulations to the salon that have done extremely well and have got through to the NYC Hair Awards final in the Style Innovator category for the southern region of England. They will now compete to win at Tribe2010 on Monday 13 of September….best of luck to them.

New Fellowship President and Creative Director of the multiple-award winning Clipso group, Terry Calvert was honoured by a standing ovation at his recent Fellowship Power Night.

Compered by past-President, Sean Dawson, the hundred strong crowd looked like a ‘who’s who’ of hairdressing with the likes of Richard & Hellen Ward, Andrew and Liz Collinge, Tony Rizzo, Daniel and Joshua Galvin, Gary France, and Akin Kinozi all supporting and encouraging Terry.

The evening saw Terry reminisce his past 30+ years in the hairdressing industry from a 16 year old skin head experimenting with perm and colour chemicals in the staff room to styling models, bands and actress’ hair as a leading session stylist, to his tribulations in the 80’s recession and of course, his huge success in running the renowned Clipso group that first opened in 1978.

The evening was supported by a montage of film footage showing Terry’s creative expertise and broken down into the decades from the 70’s to Naughties.  The audience were taken back in time with Terry as he regaled the audience with his humours anecdotes juxtaposed with his exceptional hairdressing and business skills and creative eye – having first discover and styled the likes of Brit favourites Melanie Sykes, Tess Daley, and Fraser’s leading lady ?,.

Accompany each filmed decade Terry presented homage to the decade which saw stunning catwalk models prepared by Terry and his artistic team.  With stunning couture designs and cheeky choreography that saw the models join Terry on his ‘casting couch’ – the audience were given a modern day twist on Terry’s original styling from each decade. 

The 70’s saw Bowie’esque strong power cuts, 80’s was the golden age where everyone wanted colour, cuts and perms and Terry and Clipso started to really make their mark within the award circuit, the 90’s was the icon era with wealth, sexuality and Clipso’s award success continued in force, and ending in the 00’s with an avant-garde take of styling more associated with the modern day stars such as Lady Gaga.

With a questions and answers session from the audience to complete the evening, Terry concluded his journey, with an overview, “I’ve always seen hairdressing as fun but with always with that professional element.  I have high standards and know how to get the best out of people without being horrible about it.  To have longevity in our industry you shouldn’t get in a rut, keep adapting and push your boundaries – be progressive and excel in all areas.  I’m a versatile hairdresser and can be as experimental with my cuts, colour, curls, hair ups and the end result needs me to be.  It’s also about sharing your knowledge and pushing forward on our creativity – it’s not political but creative.  Becoming the new Fellowship President will enable me to share my values and encourage the next generation – the Clubstar members.  Hairdressing and the Fellowship is about excitement, fun, professional and the art of hairdressing.”

This was such an exciting day, I LOVE Angelo. I have watched his work before and find him brilliant, he’s so cool and calm. The first time I got to meet him was at Central Saint Martins fashion show,  I was doing the hair backstage he was judging the show and came backstage to give us all support. The next time I saw him was last year at L’Oreal’s Barcelona Exposure Tour - so to work side by side with him this time, was a real opportunity. Angelo put on a seminar for us with Trevor Sorbie assisting him (!) - It was fabulous and really got us all excited about learning from him.

Angelo taught us a technique that he had used recently at a show, it was very intricate almost alien like, a twisting technique with a soft gel down each side of the head-extremely hard to do! I spent hours going over it, trying to master the technique and eventually I got there but still not as perfect as Angelo’s! We then moved onto mastering the perfect pony tail - it’s not as easy as it sounds but it was great to be shown this so closely by Angelo.

Then our day with Angelo was over. What a fantastic day, he was everything I expected. He is the same person off stage as he is on stage, down to earth, genuine, calm and cool. He gave up being in Paris doing hair for German Vogue to be with us. This man certainly keeps his word!

Thank you Angelo!

I’ve been given the amazing opportunity to be a member of the industries’ infamous FAME Team for 2010 – four of us (me, Ben, Olive and Ross) are selected from 100’s of other young, up and coming stylists to be mentored for a year by Errol Douglas and Bruno Marc.  Past members have included well known hairdressers like Errol Douglas, Paul Merritt, Antoinette Beenders,Lisa Shepherd, Zoe Irwin, Adam Reed and many, many more – so I’m following in some impressive footsteps!  In my blog I’m going to keep you up to date on the many exciting activities we’re going to be up to…so here’s my first one:

We just did our first ever show for Clubstar at Wella. It was a fantastic young audience with a few mature watchful eyes – as it was our first stage show, it had to be brilliant, and it was!

We had 10 models and the concept was a 90’s grunge young street look. My inspiration came originally from Chanel’s spring summer collection and the upcoming revival of many of the 90’s bands at this year’s festivals – think Guns and Roses, Green Day, Blink 182 and Take That.

Men’s hairstyling was massive in the 90’s so we wanted to include that in the show – we used bands like Blur and Oasis for the bowl type cut and also more edgier Kurt Cobain and River Phoenix long haired cut that were more grown out, shaggy styles.

For the girls we went all out long hair – buns, out of bed looks, undone quiffs etc. It’s a great opportunity to show the audience my own style – I went for crimping, perms mixed with tight plaiting and under cutting the shape for a modern twist. For the cutting looks we worked a lot of short hair, mixing up a lot of androgynous flat not to over styled crops.

The show was a massive test for us all but we nailed it.  What’s next?

We had the great pleasure of linking with John Lewis and the Lynda Jackson Macmillan Centre and officially launching our new 'Ready to Wear' wig cutting service at an evening recognising breast cancer.  

Over sixty women came along on the night to be treated to a evening of advice by John Lewis lingerie experts, Clipso stylists Jodie Alexander and Emily Pearson and nurses and hospice workers from Lynda Jackson Macmillan Centre.

With friends and family attending - the evening ended in a glamorous fashion show where everyone supported and cheered the women on the catwalk.

Our Ready to Wear wig cutting treatment is a new complimentary service for customers under going chemotherapy.  We're here to offer hair advice to you and then cut & style your wig, free of charge.  It's hard enough going through the treatment without worrying about wearing a bad looking wig, so this is our way of helping you look great regardless of how you may feel.

Call us for a chat and feel to let your family, friends and colleagues know about this free service too.

Big thanks to Matt Bush and Lucy Hopkins who styled hair at the Bedham Primary School fundraising Indulgence Evening on Thurs 29th.  They were offering their advice and skills performing hair up, styling and that all essential styling and product advice. 

We love getting involved in local fundraising events, so why not speak to us next time your in the salon about any events you're organising to see if we can get involved too?