This beautiful love story began with determination and trust. Because in Interior Design, human relationships, the chemistry between people, carry far more weight than you might think. That is something I will always be grateful to Hair Cut Day and its owner for.
You see, when we first visited the space, it was wrapped in vagueness. It was already a hair salon by then, and its aged solid-brick walls painted white stripped it of any emotional connection to the magic of touch, of texture. It was white, cold, timid, caught halfway between the promise of what it hoped to be and never became, the chronicle of a closure foretold.
To be honest, five minutes into that first visit we still had no idea what the new space would look like. Design is the fruit of a few weeks of work and a great deal of emotional connection.
But we did know what it would not be; those white walls would give way to the one memory that would live on in the new HCD: its century-old walls, full of stories and echoes of a better time.
This was never going to be the usual space where a century-old structure alone plays the lead. Colouring hair is artistic, it has a lot of creation in it, a kind of alchemy where the colourist's hands make the result, and the new HCD was resolutely going to tell a story through Interior Design.
Acidic colours began to take shape; greens, reds, limes, a new take on the industrial concept, with an experimental yet ultra-refined air and hints of the seventies. This space sounds melodically like "post rock", where instrumental fusion and experimentation are ever present; for example, in those razor-thin lines the lime-coloured acrylics cast at their slimmest edge: the magical impression that a light is illuminating them, even though that is only a product of your imagination.
And this story would not have the sex-appeal, nor the emotion it carries, without the meticulous lighting work behind it.
Where the depth, the drama, the chiaroscuro or the sparse light at the wash station invite you to introspection and to the pleasure of touch on your own hair.
A true work of craftsmanship, care and personalisation, where every material, every line of light and every colour tells a part of the story.
