An
interview with Nicky Clarke
Many of the best celebrity styles we have admired over the
years have been created by Nicky Clarke. As personal stylist
to movie stars, pop icons and princesses, Nicky has worked
with an entire generation of the world’s most famous faces.
It is a credit to the talent of the man that he is greatly
respected within his industry. He is often described as the
man who made hair glamorous and exciting again. His passion
for hairdressing and his unique style have made him an international
icon.
He is still revered by many as the best in the business. His
enthusiasm for his work is stronger than ever and he spends
much of his time on the salon floor doing what he loves –
styling and creating beautiful hair.
Nicky Clarke’s career started in 1974, when he joined the
‘House of Leonard’ as an apprentice. The Nicky Clarke brand
began in 1991 when Nicky was persuaded by his wife Lesley
Clarke to open a salon in Mayfair, London. Lesley has been
the driving force behind the brand’s success, using her business
expertise to develop popular product ranges and overseeing
the salon expansion.
UKHairdressers was delighted to catch up with Nicky at Professional
Hairdresser Live 2012 in Manchester and took the opportunity
to learn more about the man behind the image.
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Nicky Clarke was Hairdresser of the Year 1994
Nicky and Lesley Clarke met in 1981. Lesley is CEO
of Nicky Clarke Worldwide
Nicky and Lesley Clarke opening their salon in Manchester
in 2001
Nicky and Lesley Clarke at Buckingham Palace in 2008,
where Nicky received an OBE for ‘Services to the Hairdressing
Industry’
Hair Raiser - Nicky’s ‘super hero product’
Tease Me - the double award-winning volumising product
Brooke Shields, the American actress
and model
Nicky appeared in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous
in 1997 with Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley
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When did you decide
you wanted to be a hairdresser?
Nicky: “It started when I was 17. I didn’t know I wanted to
be a hairdresser much before that, but at 14 or 15 it was
starting to happen because I did a couple of the guys’ hair
in our school. It was also a bit of a ritual at our house,
that the white sheet would come out and then the kids’ hair
would be cut… It became a jokey thing, my father was very
particular about not just having anybody do it, he had that
old 40s long hair… and because he had long hair, the kids
would always climb all over him and play with it and there
were always these quiffs going on. It wasn’t I wanted to be
a hairdresser, it was part of my upbringing.
I went to a grammar school… we had a change over, a new headmaster
who introduced a minimum requirement for O’levels (to continue
to sixth form). I thought I’d be OK, I’d just about get that,
but I didn’t. So I was in this sudden situation, I’ve got
to go and get a job! That’s how I got started. I took advice
from some people, not to go to college but to go into a great
salon and start at the bottom, sweeping up and polishing the
brass and that’s what I did.”
When I got into it, I was driven by vanity, in the sense I
didn’t want to look an idiot - so that kept me wanting to
learn more. I would take my work home, and those were the
days when there were pin curls and Marcel waves to perfect…
such a wide range and I thought any minute I would be asked
to do one of these... I remember I was stopped by the police
once because I was sat on the tube with a pair of scissors
in my hand! It was important for me to get the feel of the
scissors, being able to be that dextrous… I qualified very
early, in 10 months, which was a record.”
Do you have a favourite hairstyle?
Nicky: “I don’t know if I have a favourite hairstyle, I have
a favourite ‘feel’. There’s a vibe - I love the fact that
as an industry we can talk about different textures and shapes,
but actually in the real world I want to see shiny, medium
density hair - if you have fine hair you want it a bit thicker,
if you have thick hair or it’s a bit frizzy you want it smoother
or toned down. It’s not rocket science. The rest of it is
all about fashion.
Whether you send someone down a runway with matt hair or textured,
etc that’s fantastic to do that, but… if you talk to anyone
who’s real, who isn’t 20 and into that, for most people they
want to know it ticks the boxes of lifestyle, aspirations,
their job, their dreams, their versatility. Most of the time
they don’t want it to look too forced - an effortless glamour,
a
natural glamour. I hate the word glamour but can’t think of
another one to match it. It mean’s there’s enough of something,
but within that there is a nonchalance about it, but it isn’t
the boring side - being that stylised that it does nothing
- it’s about having something that might be just slightly
cheeky, sexy, slightly sporty … but doesn’t look too ‘done’.
If you blowdry someone’s hair or you set it, you’ve got the
basis of something that looks fantastic, but then you might
just mess it up slightly, so it becomes more ‘now’ or you
loosen it in some way, but you need to know how to do it in
the first place. It’s probably the thing I find I’m teaching
the most to people - that you know how to do something, because
then when you have the basis you can modernise it in this
way or that way, then it becomes part of a trend.
Most people want it (their hair) to look great and sometimes
people forget that. Hairdressers look at the shape of a haircut
and the haircut’s fine but it’s not relevant. I’ve said this
one before, I’ve got a client I’ve had for 20 years and her
hair is quite wavy and slightly unruly. She came in distraught,
she’d been somewhere else. She kept saying ‘it’s the worst
cut’, but there was nothing wrong with it, in fact it was
a perfect cut… but when she came to do it herself it had nothing
to do with the way her hair was. The stylist had forced it
into something, not appreciating that she had this slightly
unruly hair, made up of different textures. The only way to
cut this hair properly was to mostly do it dry, in a way that
may not be technically perfect but it’s perfect in ‘look’.
Sometimes when you pull something at eye level it’s fine,
but when you let it go one bit’s wavy and one bit’s straight
and it’s not going to line up. You have to make a decision
based on what you’re seeing. Clearly that stylist hadn’t done
that. It was a great haircut and if my client was the sort
of person who never left her hair wavy and always blow-dried
the life out of it, it would have probably been alright.
I mostly work dry. My wet is my rough sketch and the rest
is trying to make it fit the person; so that’s probably where
I’m different. My attention to detail is finer, because I
can’t work wet. Wet only gives me a straight line; wet only
gives me ‘it’s even’. I can’t get the subtleties of when something
dries, the difference between the finer points is going to
be guesswork when it’s wet. It’s slightly different with longer
hair, longer layers, then your guess work becomes better,
but when you’ve got delicate fringes etc, it’s not how it’s
going to be.”
We live in a world where we can be blast dried and it’s made
with products and the line between what’s bad and what’s good
- or what’s bad and what’s edgy - has been blurred. I see
bad hairdressing but every other ingredient is good, particularly
in pictures, especially now with so much post production.
But if you have a great girl who’s just scraped her hair up
then of course she looks good because she’s a great girl,
but that becomes a trend - and it’s fine if you’re 20 years
old, but it’s not fine if your 30 or 35 because it just looks
rough or tired, or it’s not helping you in anyway. So I’m
in the position of doing is something that’s trying to help
without looking like I’m trying too hard.”
What’s the strangest place you’ve been asked to travel
to? Does anything stick in your mind?
Nicky: “Not really, as a session hairdresser I’ve done hair
all over the world. Some of them have been just incredible.
One time David Bailey called me and asked ‘Do you want to
go to Bora Bora?’ and my initial response was ‘Where’s Bora
Bora?’ It turned out we were doing a Lamb’s Navy Rum calendar
– which to this day I have never seen… I went along for the
ride.
Sometimes doing very high profile people in very unglamorous
places is probably strange. I remember doing Elizabeth Taylor’s
hair in a hotel bathroom, with her head over the bath!”
Products have evolved so much in hairdressing now. Do you
have a favourite
product?
Nicky: “In the 70s I introduced what is now a volumising lotion/thickening
spray when I was at Frieda’s. It’s interesting to look back
now because it was done by accident; I was going out with
a girl who looked like Siouxsie (the lead singer of Siouxsie
and the Banshees) and I used to use these very old fashioned
setting vials; I’d break them all and decant them into a bottle
- into a spray. It doesn’t sound like rocket science now but
it was then… I realised that you could now defy gravity.
Musically in that period, 1978-79 we were looking at the New
Wave period and 1979-80 was the start of the New Romantics
and everything was about that. If you take that and then take
1982-83 as being the commercialised version of that, you have
the ‘Dallas big hair’. You could do that by lifting the roots
but not actually doing anything to the ends and that was the
secret… Even in the studio, for me it was very often I would
do nothing more than go in and just pile this all this stuff
on and just make every root stand up, just pinning it while
the makeup artist did her thing; and you use that as a base
then and you would very often not do anything else other than
then put a wax on and moving it around between pictures, so
you had that ‘offness’ that became so much of the early 80s.
If I look at what that (product) became – whether it be John
Frieda’s Sticking Lotion or my Hair Raiser – that formula
that I had has probably only changed four times in 30 years
now. And it’s still our biggest selling product. If you say
to me you can only have a couple of favourite products then
that would certainly be there.
Some of the new ones - and Tease Me’s one of them - enable
us to get into more niche markets. I get into my thing of
‘I love that’, it’s not for everybody but I love it. And funnily
enough, Tease Me is actually spreading its audience, because
originally I saw it as being for young girls who were backcombing
their hair and getting that slightly edgy look. But, actually,
I’m using it on older clients who’ve just got fine hair -
just subtlety. So it has expanded and it’s not so niche now,
so I’ve been proved wrong. Tease Me has already picked up
two awards, which is great.
Product-wise I’m still going for the Holy Grail - the Holy
Grail being you don’t want to know there’s any product on
your hair. And Hair Raiser, in 99% of cases other than may
be in very highly peroxide blonde hair, that’s what I get.
It goes on, it goes wet, it goes slightly sticky, then it
dries and you don’t see it and you don’t feel it. For me it’s
my hero product – my superhero product!”
“The key (with the range) was to get back the originals… so
we had our basics. I need people to understand… I don’t want
to go head to head with other people and say I’m just changing
for the sake of changing, but at the same time I’ve got to
do something that stops people thinking I’m stuck... It’s
a fine line. I think the proof is in the pudding…”
Finally, what advice could you offer someone who wants
to become a hairdresser?
Nicky: “I’ve always said the harder you try the luckier you
get. If you come in for the right reasons - which is not to
get famous quick - then you’ll love it because whatever happens
you’ll be focused and you’ll enjoy it. This industry has such
a wide, varied aspect to it, whether it be working in a salon,
working in a studio, working on a runway, working in competition
hair, working in the theatre - there’s just so much that’s
not the way people think of it. Anybody that really wants
to achieve that goal… It’s about setting achievable, small
things and really going for it, and re-assessing and being
open to things changing. It’s really knowing where you want
to be. If you’re very single-minded about the kind of thing
that you want to do, then it’s possible - you just go out
there and do it.”
A cut and finish with Nicky Clarke at his London salon
costs £300
(£500 for a first consultation)
Nicky Clarke’s new product range is available to buy at nickyclarke.com,
prices range from £10.00 to £22.00
by Brigette Barton Siddiqui |
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