The Salon
ON A BEAUTIFUL, SUMMERY DAY in March 2000, a woman wearing a little pink top and matching skirt went to the door of Axis Hair Salon at 25 William Street in Paddington. As she moseyed up William Street with her blond, curly-hair, she mulled over her recent divorce and the rental contract she was on the brink of signing elsewhere. Why her friend had urged her to inspect this little salon she did not know.
The woman was Joanna (Jo) Colette, and she was looking for a property that she could live in while at the same time ply her trade as a beauty therapist. She paused outside the front and peered through the glass windows. Looking down at her watch she realised it was noon and the salon was open, and so she carefully opened the door and walked in.
Potent hair salon fumes infused the room and a funny looking man was leaning back into his stool gleefully. “Hi there”, Jo said. “My friend, Rocks, who works at the Axis Salon in Canberra suggested I introduce myself. You may have a spare room for rent?”. Bald, charismatic and with distinctive Italian features and wearing a loose-fitting jean vest, the man acknowledged her and then jumped up and ran out the back to make Jo a coffee from his coffee machine. The man was the owner of the salon and his name was Gianni. “Correct my dear”, Gianni stated returning with her coffee and his complete attention. “I’ve got a spare room upstairs. If that would work for you, happy for you to rent it. Go up and have a look first and let me know what you think”. Smiling, Gianni indicated towards the back room and then began shuffling combs in a drawer-tray in a trolley. Jo nodded politely and ascended the narrow winding stairs that looped around from the back to the front of the terrace. She opened the door slowly, it creaked. The room was small, quaint with delicate wallpaper and French windows. It was perfect Jo thought. Within a week, Jo had rummaged her life together and moved into the little upstairs room in the pretty Paddington terrace.
Seventeen years later Jo is still there. As the owner and manager of Axis Hair Face Body, she has witnessed the many changes across Paddington in this time. From one of Sydney’s greatest fashion precincts, to a downturn and more recently signs of a revival, Paddington has thrived during times of prosperity and then declined as market forces sent rents skyrocketing and the diversity of small businesses away. Keeping the salon above water during testing times has not been easy, but Jo credits the community to sustaining life in the salon and and the suburb in general.
Paddington is a unique, affluent inner-city suburb of Sydney. Paddington’s main thoroughfare, Oxford Street, was built on a ridge which was originally a walking track used by the Australian Indigenous people. Over time, the efficient route that was Oxford Street made transport readily available and contributed to the gentrification of the suburb. Paddington village evolved with the commencement of the Victoria Barracks in 1841 and grew with the subdivision of large estates into spectacular terrace style housing in the late 1800s. Historically a working-class suburb, the arrival of European migrants after the wars (who settled in Paddington due to its affordability and convenience) cultivated the suburb into a bohemian and multicultural area.
The typical terraces lining William Street.
A little street off Oxford Street has its own special charm. William Street is a one-way street with the direction of traffic up towards Oxford Street. It is not a long street, around 300m, and has a slight incline. The street is accessed by taking the peaceful and tree-lined Victorian Paddington Street, and as this street narrows and curves intersecting with William Street, hubs of activities emerge. Men and women swish solo up and down the street with a fashionable accessory and bag of shopping and people cluster outside their boutiques. Pretty restored terraces in different colours and with distinctive cast-iron balcony railings line the street. The street has had the footpath widened in recent years and trucks rumble up the street delivering goods to the pubs near-by. The August sun filters through the trees and a light breeze rustles the leaves. Today the street is quiet except for some drilling at a near-by home renovation and voices of people gathering at the bottom end of the street near a café. On the upper end of the street and sandwiched between two pubs is the family owned and run salon, Axis Hair Face Body. Commercially zoned with a big window out the front, the salon has existed for a solid thirty years.
Inside, the salon is spick and span with crisp white walls, dark floorboards and track lighting. The central feature of the room is a stunning wooden piece of furniture that acts as the counter on which lies a Lenova desktop and a vase filled with a collection of sand, shells and a sea plant. A pyramid of shampoos, conditioners and gels is lined up meticulously on the shelf above. The entrance room has three hair stations each with a black styling chair and large mirror. A cyclamen plant sits in the corner and a suede cowhide lounge reclines under the full-length windows. There are two washbasins and two more hair stations in the back room, along with a kitchen, bathroom, small courtyard and narrow stairs leading up to the upstairs room reserved for beauty treatments. Artworks of an underwater theme hang throughout the salon, giving it the feel of an art gallery at the same time. The salon has polished light fittings and décor and a pleasant ambience mustered by the song “If I ain’t got you” by Alicia Keys playing in the background.
Inside the Salon is spick and span with a homely feel.
The suade cowhide lounge reclines under full-length windows looking out to William Street.
Jo is sweeping the floors when the phone rings, and she goes to answer it. “Good afternoon, Axis Salon, this is Jo”. The phone doesn’t stop ringing all afternoon with people booking, changing and cancelling appointments and some just making a friendly call. It’s Wednesday around 2pm and the hairdressers are warming up for their work week which runs from midday on a Wednesday through to Saturday night. The little family at Axis consists of Jo, her daughter Jacqueline, and hairdressers Rohan and Kelly. Together, the quartet make a mature team with a great respect for each other and no rights to entitlements.
At close to sixty years of age, Jo is the epitome of beauty aging well. She wears a stylish navy shirt dress, a pair of flats and a couple of jewels. Her hair is creamy blonde and beautifully blow-dried and her make-up has been masterly applied. Despite almost forty years in Australia, Jo still has her English country accent and her kind effervescence imbues the room. Jo has been sweeping for a while when she pauses for a moment and looks poignantly at a photo framed of her and her two grandsons sitting on a tall chest. Jo’s journey to owning a salon in Paddington is unique, and it is testament to her that her small business has stayed alive during difficult times of change in Paddington.
Jo grew up in a little village in the East Anglican country of Cambrideshire in England. Jo’s father was a farmer and as a young child she had a classic country life, simple and wholesome. After finishing school, Jo studied beauty therapy at the famous health farm, “Henlow Grange” in Heartfordshire in England. “But beauty therapy was not what I wanted to do”, Jo declares. “The only reason I did that was I was hell bent on becoming a make-up artist”. In those days, an education in make-up artistry was through the television networks and pre-required a diploma in beauty therapy or hair dressing. “So that’s what I did to complete my entry, really with no intentions of doing beauty therapy at all!”. After completing her course, Jo returned to her village still intent on getting into make-up artistry. “Unbeknown to my parents I was getting letters every week of offers of employment in beauty therapy from all these wonderful salons around England, and I was hiding the letters in my draw because I didn’t want to do that”, Jo recalls. After five months of writing to the television stations, Jo realised she could not get in without a leg-up in the industry, and her father, furious that she had hid all the letters of employment, drove her to London for an interview for a job in beauty therapy.
Jo’s other ambition was to travel. She worked at beauty salons in London for three years saving up considerable money before coming out to Australia in 1980 at the age of 22. “My first impressions of Sydney were that I thought I had died and gone to heaven, it was just like I’m never going back to the UK again”. After travelling around Australia and falling in love with the coastline, Jo met her husband, Dean, a Greek solicitor in 1981 and was married the following year. Around this time, she commuted from Clovelly to Manly to work at a concept salon which was the first of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere at the time. “The concept salon brought together the concepts of beauty therapy, hair dressing, fashion, cosmetics and make-up all under one roof, and that was a booming business in the ‘80s”.
It wasn’t until thirteen years later with a divorce and three children did life in Paddington emerge. “It’s amazing how divorce forces you back into full-time work and that was when I came to the salon in Paddington and met Gianni”. As a 40-year old woman, Jo was wanting to go back into beauty therapy but with a point of difference. “I was really looking at targeting the best in anti-ageing products out there. There was a product on the market at the time produced by a doctor from LA which had these specific enzyme treatments. So that’s how I kicked off here, the enzyme treatments were the big drawcard”. As Jo settled in and started growing her clientele things were looking good until Gianni told her that he would not be staying. “He gave me some options which was great”. Jo and Gianni negotiated a 50/50 partnership, which gave Gianni a chance to remain in the business and for Jo to learn the ropes. Within eighteen months of becoming partners Jo had picked up the confidence to buy him out completely, and in 2003 she did just that.
The modest front of Axis Hair Face Body.
Back at the salon, Jacqueline is out the back sorting out colours while Rohan is tidying up a pile of magazines. “Have you seen this Jaqu! Rumours Prince Harry is to be engaged to The Suit’s actor, Meghan Markle!” Rohan calls out to Jaqueline as he examines the front page of the Woman’s Day. “Yeah, I heard about that”, responds Jaqueline. The gossip on the front of these magazines is always some light relief when the days feel long and hard. Rohan is well dressed in a pink shirt, a hipster pair of pants and a thick leather belt. He has fair skin, dyed short hair and a necklace of shells and a silver chain draped around his neck. He wears a Fitbit and has a ring in his left ear. Born to New Zealand parents, Rowan grew up in Vanuatu and then Canberra, completed all his schooling in French and has an air of sophistication about him. Rowan’s first client walks in for the day, a little lady called Dianne who is also a great family friend to Jo. She has come to get her hair cut and coloured and after a discussion with Rowan, he begins to tint her hair with foils.
Jacqueline is still playing with colours out the back when Jo shadows past asking her to make a cup of coffee for Dianne who has just arrived. Daughter of Jo and Jo’s Greek former husband, Jacqueline is beautiful with olive skin and long wavy golden brown hair. She is not tall, maybe 5 foot 3 and wears white ¾ jeans, converse shoes, and a black and white striped t-shirt that falls over her rounded belly (she is four months pregnant). Jacqueline fell into hairdressing at the age of twenty after helping-out at the salon on weekends. “I was drawn in seeing the rapport the staff had with their clients and that it was more than just hairdressing”, she said. Having now worked at the salon for thirteen years, Jacqueline loves talking to her clients about all sorts of things and like her mother is bubbly and articulate. A talented artist in her youth, she paints in her spare time and some of her best artworks hang throughout the salon, some with a price tag.
You can hear the coffee machine at work when a young woman paces in. Jo greets her in her regular friendly manner and they disappear upstairs. The woman has come to get her eyebrows shaped and tinted. Jo has a remarkable reputation for shaping the best eyebrows in Paddington and you can hear Jo’s beautiful English voice telling stories through the terrace walls. Meanwhile, Kelly walks back in with some lunch, she doesn’t have a client until 3pm. Fair haired, fair skinned and with a soft voice, Kelly is the quieter one of the clan. Born in Auckland, Kelly always had the inclination and creativity for cutting other people’s hair and used to practise on her nanna and barbie dolls as a child. Jo has returned from upstairs with the young woman who is now going to get her hair coloured by Jacqueline. They kick off like a house on fire and chat away into the afternoon about the latest fitness fads, the Amalfi coast and the difficulties of pregnancy. Meanwhile, Jo is flipping through the diary that lies on the counter like a broadsheet. “Oh look, tomorrow we have dear little Hilda coming in”, she tells me. “She’s 80 years old and now got dementia, oh Hilda has been coming to us for so many years I can’t tell you”. Jo continues to speak of the nurturing of the old lady to make sure that somebody gets her here and they get her home safely. “There is so much trust value, I mean I don’t think we’ve ever charged Hilda the right amount of money, ever once, because we just don’t”.
The importance of the hairdresser-client relationship is obvious at Axis and the salon has fostered a community of its own. Jo admits she never enjoyed her childhood experiences at the hairdresser. “I loathed it. I always felt like such a misfit, I never felt the staff were particularly personable… They were there with each other and you were just something that was going to be part of their creation. I dreaded it every time”, she says. Nowadays, Jo’s salon is a far cry from the environments of the salons she went to as a child. “I just feel, especially for the women, that this has been a place of just sisterhood, where over the years we’ve gone on so many journeys with people and because of that, the relationship you form with those people is amazing”. “People come in and are able to completely pour out their feelings and lay down the content of their probably terrible day or week they’re having. But I’ve realised that they’re there to give it back as well”.
Rowan and Jacqueline at work in the Salon with their clients.
A 2011 survey by Atlanta-based direct-mailing company, Welcomemat Services in the US, showed that hair salons are among the kinds of local businesses most likely to get repeat customers. It exposed that along with being skilled with scissors and a blow dryer, hairdressers are very talented in how they manage their relationships with their clients. Rowan highlights the personal nature of the hairdresser-client relationship. “Ultimately first up, you immediately develop an intimacy because you’re touching somebody’s head and not many people let other people touch their head… So once they let their guard down and let you touch their head, then that immediately lets them let their guard down in general”. According to a Pivot Point survey, 81% of people rated their relationship with their stylist as one of the main reasons they chose their salon. Experts have also revealed that people talk to their hairstylist (but not their doctor or dentist) about relationships. Salon chairs, like therapists couches, inspire people to divulge their personal lives and the special relationship between hairdressers and their clients involves trust and a unique friendship. Jacqueline said reflecting, “It is beyond hair for me, it is the clients and my relationship with them that keeps me here. Without this place, I wouldn’t be doing it”.
“I have a mystery, I have a mystery”, reverberates a playful voice through the door. “Oh look, it’s Wolfie”, remarks Jo contentedly. A little boy with blonde hair that falls over his eyes and wearing a tailored white t-shirt and blue jeans careers in and shows the next closest person his newest gadget. “Wolfie you’re frothing at the mouth”, exclaims Jo. He was dribbling. The boy starts to skirt around the room when an attractive brunette wearing a pair of Gucci Princetown fur-lined leather loathers, ¾ jeans, a white top and Gucci sunglasses walks in pushing a big stroller in which her other child, another little boy called River, squirms restlessly. “Oh look, it’s the whole family”, Jo says. The woman’s husband is chatting to someone on the street but bolts in afterwards. Rebecca is Jo’s second daughter and Rebecca and her husband Bryce are the local “it couple” having recently snapped up a designer terrace in Paddington. Canadian, super cool and with a couple of tattoos and a light beard, Bryce is the co-founder of Nudie Jeans and has been very successful with the business. He wears, without fail, blue Nudie Jeans sitting below his waist, a crisp white turtle neck t-shirt and a chain around his neck. It’s Bryce’s 38th Birthday today and in-between a busy schedule of international travel, they are going to have a birthday drink at the London Pub down the road. Their boys are gorgeous but constant, hard work running amok around the salon. Jo believes Paddington has many elements, but first and foremost is the strong sense of community and family. “It’s crazy if you think about it because Paddington’s terraces aren’t really geared for families. But the families who chose to make the sacrifice for the big home with lots of land, I think in return get something much wealthier”.
As the afternoon gives way to early evening, you can feel the sleepy mid-afternoon William Street awake to a new energy. The frequency of people walking past the salon has increased with people bustling on the footpaths chatting and laughing and the pubs starting to fill. Around this time, the businesses on William Street are sometimes at their busiest. When Jo first came to William Street in the early 2000s, she remembers how there were hardly any shops. “If you were coming down William Street from Oxford Street, we (the salon) were the first shop with a couple on the other side, the rest was all residential”. Around the same time, down at 41 William Street, Ruth Fairbairn, a fashion graduate who had tasted success at the Paddington Markets selling designer linen clothes, moved into a little shop front terrace. “When I started here in the year 2000, this terrace was derelict but I just knew it had a good energy from the Paddington markets”, she asserts. A 2012 article showed that designers work from the ground up, meaning they start at places like the markets and if they do well there, they know they have a product. It was not long before people realised the potential William Street had as a strip for boutiques and started opening shops up on the residential premises. Jo recalls, “Council caught onto this and started actions against these people imposing all sorts of stipulations and creating tension on the street”. The drama continued until council sent out letters gauging people’s opinion on the matter and a few years later re-zoned the area allowing businesses to run on residential terraces. “It was like, this is great, let it go, let it happen, free it up. This is how it should be, this is a community and William Street is a perfect shopping destination”, said Jo.
Over the following few years, the street grew into a bustling strip with the opening of various shops and boutiques. Paddington was in what became known as its “hey-day”. “This was the street to be on”, stated Rowan. “There was Collette Dinnigan, Belinda, Valenz, the corner shop, it was real fashion-y. Saturdays were heaving and people got really dressed up. I remember seeing people hopping out of the cars with fur coats and stuff, and we were like wow…people were out and about to be seen”. Kelly added with fondness, “You couldn’t even walk up the street on a Saturday, all these people were linking arms”.
Meanwhile, Oxford street was changing massively and a series of factors started a process which would eventually drive out the boutiques and destroy the vibrant Paddington that was evolving. Rising rents, the billion-dollar retail development, Westfield Bondi Junction, reduced parking (the making Oxford Street a clearway and a direct thoroughfare to Westfield), and the Global Financial Crisis, cannibalized tenants and foot traffic and contributed to the well-known demise of Oxford Street. The rising rents on Oxford Street as global brands came in pushed designers and independents into streets like William Street, but it was not long until the same thing started happening on William Street. “I’ve known people such as the Bridal Designer, Adam Dixon, who moved from one shop to another shop to across the street because they just kept putting his rent up, like we’re talking about doubling the rents, like massive increases”, Jo said. Jo recalls how it then became this crazy transient street where things were coming and going so fast, it was ridiculous. “The beautiful little fashion boutiques that were such drawcards for the street were gone and replaced by ‘wafty’ little pop-up shops just so the properties could remain rented. Walking down William St instead of seeing lots of beautiful boutiques, it was like William Street really has got grotty again”. As Australia’s property market took off, people were trying to capitalise and the thriving metropolis that was once Oxford Street and its surroundings suffered. Geoff Ludowyke, the vice president of the Paddington Society refers to “the bookending of Westfield” (which sent all unique proprietors to either Westfield Bondi Junction or Westfield CBD connected by Oxford Street) as the biggest change that has affected Paddington.
Shop vacancies hit Oxford Street.
As the shops emptied out and vacancies rose, Paddington was hanging by a thread. According to Cushman & Wakefield, the high vacancy rates of these years hit 25.3 percent in Paddington and up to 70 percent in the worst hit areas. Axis Salon is one of the few, along with Fairbairn, which has held in William Street. Shops like the Women’s Wear Jiva, the Sweet William Chocolates and Nudie Jeans have also bucked the trend. “I personally feel to come to William Street and to sustain a business on William Street, and there’s been a few of us who have just stayed and stayed, and I think it’s because we all have something in common and that is that we really do have that village mentality”, Jo said. “I really think it’s about creating something within our community. We’ve given service but we’ve given more than service, we’ve created a friendly, loving and helpful environment for people to come into. I think if you want to come into this street with a new fashion brand and so forth, if you don’t have the integrity and honesty in your business, I don’t think it’s going to work”.
On a Thursday afternoon, I pop my head into Fairbairn, the shop down the road from Axis and meet Ruth the owner and designer. An eccentric woman, Ruth is uniquely attractive with crazy, curly orange hair. She has a soothing voice and speaks patiently and articulately having proudly earned her first-class honours in fashion. A woven designer (meaning she works in natural fibres), Ruth is passionate about natural fibres; even her business cards are made of linen. She has a quirky sense of humour, does not identify with time and admits to liking the hermit lifestyle. Her notebook full of scribbles and ideas sits crookedly on her table. When I enter her shop, classical music is playing and a mosquito buzzes around some clothes. “This Paddington is full of mosquitos, they’re always here, I don’t know why… I used to be bitten alive when I lived upstairs”, mutters Ruth whilst flicking the mosquito outside. Her eyes catch a woman standing across the road dressed in gym gear, “That fashion will never change”, chuckles Ruth, “The majority of women have dressed down to a level when there is no theatre whatsoever… there’s no feather in the hat, there’s no broach, I’m constantly looking for the feather and the hat, occasionally I see it”. Ruth’s disappointment with the decline in flamboyant fashion on William Street reflects more broadly how the street, along with Paddington, lost its mojo.
Like Jo, Ruth maintains the key to a successful business here lies in the community. “My customers are like family, I know everything about them”, she says. “They come and visit me without purchasing, and that’s important… The moment you put money first you’re in trouble because you’ll get it but it won’t remain”. I look around Ruth’s shop and the displays of clothes are unique and authentic. She tells me how much effort she puts into her window displays (unlike the high-street chains) and highlights that this street is inherently bohemian. “Where there is muck, there is money. We don’t want this cleaned up like Double Bay, we want to keep the muck, the muck’s good. This is working class Paddington… we need to bring the bricker back and the second-hand books”, she says. Ruth would like to see William Street made into a walkway and more specialist crafts like a wood carver, cabinet maker and shoe maker in shops here. “This area is like La Bottega in Florence, as well as the left bank in Paris”, she says. “There are definitely parallels with Europe”.
Alimentari Cafe at the bottom end of William Street. A small business that helps maintain the community.
Like many places, Paddington has experienced the natural cycles of change and market forces. According to a 2016 article in Sydney’s In Focus magazine, Oxford Street is on the rise again after falling on tough times in recent years. The Eastern Suburbs Economic Profile 2013 Report revealed a surge of development activity is set to re-energise the famous strip and sources have said Paddington and Oxford Street are remerging as charming hotspots for retail and development. Jo has hope and faith that Paddington is building itself back up again because the diversity is coming back. “We’re getting fabulous new cafes and little wine bars popping up everywhere and hopefully that will encourage the small businesses to come back again. But I still feel Paddington has never lost its sense of community”. Over the past twelve months some two dozen boutiques, restaurants and bars have opened along Oxford Street. Local government stimulus initiatives including allowing more (15 minute) free parking have also helped in the revival. Geoff Ludowyke recently stated the focus in Paddington has shifted to ‘social entertainment’ with all pubs reinvigorating themselves and Justin Hemmes having three new offerings. Geoff also highlights William Street as a place of, “unique, stylish offerings that were once on Oxford street. It is the incubator location for up and coming designers”, he said, “You won’t find a McDonalds or any commercial franchises on William Street”.
Redevelopment on Oxford Street.
Today you can feel the change in Paddington just by walking around. As I meander up William Street one afternoon I pass the little boutique shops of Di Nuova Fashion Recycles, Leona Edmiston, Pierre & Winter Fine Jewels, Helen English for Paddington Brides, William Antiques and the William Street Gallery to name just a few. These boutiques source things from around the world and you can tell by the shops and the way they’re set up that they have that homely feel to them. The 43-year old Paddington Markets and the William Street Festival are examples of institutions old and new that celebrate and sustain Paddington’s streets, unique retailers and lifestyle. Visiting the markets on a Saturday feels like walking through the puzzling Montmartre in Paris. The markets sell all sorts of bohemian items from local craftspeople and designers including rugs, towels, linen, art, jewellery, accessories such as leather bags, belts, ties and sunglasses, boutique fashion clothing, baby clothes, socks (gift wrapped!), as well as selections of teas, coasters, soaps, chocolate, ceramics, and even plants. The markets are full of colour and life with Jazz music playing and an impressive array of food stalls to satisfy all needs; Sweets and slices, gourmet breads, Turkish Gozleme, Queen of Venezualan Arepas, Coffee and Gelato, Himalayan cuisine, and Vietnamese sizzling. Chin’s Laksa must have been popular because it has sold out. A sign out the front reads “Please come again next week!”. Remedial massage, Japanese aromatherapy and a tent called Reiki’s Healing is even available. People, mothers, fathers, children, lovers and dogs are everywhere. The markets wouldn’t be complete without the many pigeons waddling around madly scavenging for food.
The Paddington Markets of today are still thriving.
Just recently on Saturday 21 October, William Street was alive and kicking with the William Street Festival lighting up the street with food, shopping and entertainment. “The revival is starting and gaining momentum day by day”, said Real Estate Agent and retail consultant, Ben Vaughan. On this October day, the little terrace that is Jo’s Salon shines discretely amid the colourful festival activity. Going back to the beginning, everything felt right about the place the moment Jo walked in the door on that warm day in March. “This funny, little building has an amazing Karma about it”, Jo says. “Gianni who used to sleep upstairs when he first opened up also used to say this building has good Karma. Nothing bad has ever happened here. You can tell this house just has a lot of love about it”.
According to The Australian, retailers are joining the rush to online investment. But there will always be the ‘salon’ because you can’t buy a haircut online. Today the Salon remains a place of social interaction and human contact when we get less and less human contact these days. At bohemian boutiques operate in a similar way. Paddington and its shops have been and will always be about characters, family and community. And Jo at Axis is the first to know that the key to success lies in the community. “It’s funny because there are so many salons around us but I think because we have never built our salon for a transient clientele, we’ve built it for loyalty and longevity, so I think other salons can pop up around us but it shouldn’t really affect us. Because we have built those individual relationships with people”.
References
Huntington, Patty. 2016 ‘It Makes A Village’, In Focus Sydney, No. 3, May, p. 44. WWD.COM
Wotherspoon, Garry. 2012 ‘Paddington’, City of Sydney – State Library of New South Wales.
Oates, Justine. 2012 ‘Hip, happening and very handy – Paddington in Focus’, Wentworth Courier, 10 October.
Fottrell, Quentin. 2014 ‘Ten things hairdressers will never tell you’, At Work, The Wall Street Journal, News.com.au, 18 February online.
Brooke, Stephen. 2012 ‘Dream factory’, Wish Magazine (The Australian), 7 December.
‘A welcome move on fashion strip’, The Australian, 5 December 2012