Color By NUDA pulls out all the stops to mark nine years of great hair

A smart individual once said “hair is everything”, and those of us who have had a great haircut, or worse – a terrible chop, know this couldn't be more true. Fortunately, for the last couple of years, I have been getting excellent haircuts and blowdrys at Color By NUDA. Today, the acclaimed Montreal hair salon and spa celebrates its ninth anniversary with a major bash that will feature a live DJ, food provided by local favourites Leméac and Bice, makeup demonstrations from a renowned international makeup artist with his own line of luxury brushes, as well as the presentation of a unique brand of “champagne vodka” that has yet to become available in Canada. The evening's main attraction, however, is the launch of an art book showcasing the works of famous fashion photographers (Maude Arseneault, Brian Ypperciel, Donat, Richard Bernardin and Max Abadian) whose images have graced the pages of publications like Elle and FASHION. Days before the party, I sat down with my amazing hairdresser a.k.a. NUDA owner and senior stylist Leroy Williams, to talk about the big event, his twenty plus years in the business, and everything else hair related.

NUDA owner and senior stylist Leroy Williams in action

It seems a little strange celebrating a nine year anniversary as opposed to a ten year anniversary. Why this party now?

It's actually a re-launch of the salon based on the fact that there was construction in front of the door for six months. We want to re-promote the salon. We still don't have the same voice we had on Greene Ave. (the salon moved to the Golden Square Mile three years ago), in the sense that a lot of people here aren't aware of who we are. They see us but they don't know our philosophy, or how good we are. It's sort of like a fresh start for us. We renovated the salon, redid the floors and sinks, and invested some more money. This party is a really huge investment for us. It's a re-launch to get people to know we are here, to know that we are here to stay, and that we survived the worst, and that our philosophy is still the same. It's also our way of saying thank you to the customers that have stuck with us throughout the construction and the move from Greene Ave., because without them we wouldn't have been able to make it to nine years.

What made you decide to make the move from Greene Ave. to the Golden Square Mile?

We were there for six years and had plateaud. We also wanted a ground floor location. There are some negatives and positives. On Greene we had really strong high end customer base, but the problem was that there are so many salons in a small area that at a certain point we had plateaud. Everyone was kind of split sharing the same customer. Hiring stylists became difficult and growing our customer base became difficult, so we had to think about how we want to grow the salon for the next 10-15 years. We did the research and found out there's a lot going on here; there's a lot more traffic. It has worked to our advantage because we've managed to increase our client base and have been able to attract more stylists since we've been here. But then the construction happened...

How is the art book connected to the re-launch of the salon?

The book is important because it's part of the look and inspiration for the salon. It will help us build up our brand by letting people see who we are and what we're about. We are a fashion salon and our history is rooted in fashion and the influence of fashion stylists, makeup artists, hairdressers and photographers who we work with on photo shoots, runway shows, fashion campaigns etc. We've been working on the book for the last three months. I did ninety per cent of the hair and makeup, and the photographers got carte blanche in doing work that would represent them. Getting these five photographers together was extremely complicated; they're extremely busy and it's the first time that any publication will feature these five people under one umbrella.

As a salon that's greatly influenced by fashion, do you think that customers should cut/style their hair according to the latest trends?

No. I believe that as hairdressers we should listen to our customers and try to find ways to communicate to them what the latest trends are while still respecting their ideals. We need to keep up with trends so we can make recommendations and keep our customers looking up-to-date, but things like budget, lifestyle, maintenance, and facial shape are also important.

On the subject of trends, what styles are we seeing for men and women right now?

One of the trends that I like that I'm seeing people feel excited about is longer hair for men. We had the shorter hair trend where the sides are super short and the top is longer, but now we're seeing men are growing their hair and it's more pushed back with greater movement. The business men are different from the younger men. Business men want to come in and get out, and they want things that are conducive to their lifestyle and work. A lawyer wants to look like a lawyer.

For women now, think of Jennifer Aniston, who recently went from a longer to shorter haircut and toned down her colour. We were doing a lot of very blond blonds, whereas now we're doing more mixed tones with a bit of golden blond and a shorter length to tone it down a bit. The look is also more square with less layers.

So you started to talk about colour and the salon is called Color By NUDA. How important a role does colour play in what you do?

Colour is the anchor for everything we do. You rarely find anyone, with the exception of maybe yourself, who has no colour in their hair. But there are different degrees of colour. There's colour that's a rinse and adds shine to the hair. Hair that has no colour or rinse tends to look more opaque; it's not shiny, it's more matte, whereas a rinse can add more shine because it reflects the light better. We've recognized that colour is an important part of the salon and that it marries very well with the cut. And it should because most people that come in to cut their hair should equally colour their hair. It's the biggest point of sales for us – it's huge.

From your own experience, how has the hairdressing business changed since you opened NUDA nine years ago, or since you first started working in the industry 20 years ago?

There are a lot more hairstylists and a lot more salons are popping up. There are many more free agents and a lot more people who are unwilling to work on teams so they're opening their own salons. Hair salons and spas used to be married together, now you have three businesses: you have spas, you have hair salons, and you have hair salons with spas. We are the third.

But NUDA isn't a full service spa...

That will be part of our decision making process for the next 5-10 years. What services do we add on to make the salon competitive? Do we reduce prices? Do we do more promotion? Do we add on botox? Do we add body wraps? We had a shower, we took it out, do we put it back in? Do we try to get the space upstairs? These are some ideas that we're working with.

Would you say it's a more competitive climate in Montreal right now than nine years ago?

Way more. Montreal is turning into a huge discount market. With the net now, there are lots of discounts being offered. The net is the guru now of information. People are Googling instead of calling up salons to get information. It's about understanding how the information is travelling and to get the information out to our customers, so engaging in things like social media and so on will be important for us moving forward.

Do you think people generally care more about price than the quality of the cut?

When we were on Greene Ave. we were anchored by people that cared more about reputation and the place they went to. Being around here, we're seeing people who care about price as well as quality. It's about finding a tricky balance where we don't sell ourselves short by increasing our quality and decreasing our prices. We have to be careful because once you go that route it's very difficult to come back. We don't want to do fast growth, we want to do steady growth and long term growth. That said, on Greene we had a unilaterally high end price range, but now we have a junior stylist and an intermediary stylist. The price you pay comes with the experience that you're getting. We've opened our price point to accept a different customer base. What we've learned in the last nine years is we have to change with the ever-changing market place.

How did you get into hair styling? Did you always feel you had a knack for hair?

No. I had an artistic constitution, but to be honest my brother was a stronger artist than I was. He would sketch freehand very well from memory and I used to copy great. When i was younger I would pull out pictures from magazines and put them up in my room or in frames. I kind of thought I would've navigated towards fashion styling, but at 21 I took a summer job at a salon and it allowed me to assist someone that I really admired. I was washing hair, passing the broom – the dirty jobs for two years, and I loved it. I worked with one of the top stylists in the city by pure accident. He passed away from AIDS, but while I worked with him, my career mimicked his career because he would do fashion shoots, hair and makeup in the salon, out of the salon, he was always travelling. He made a great living from it. My biggest concern was that I wouldn't be able to make a living out of it; I was studying psychology at the time. It's not something I chose, it's something I happened to fall into. I don't think I'm good at it, I think I'm always trying to be better at it. My philosophy is when you get something, that's when you should stop doing it. You need to be a tough critic of yourself.

What's your favourite and least favourite part of your job?

The running a business aspect is my least favourite, and since we're a small business it's very hands-on. What comes to mind as my favourite is doing your hair and makeup for your party. That was one of my favourite moments. I've got moments like that, that kind of work really well. You love the customer, they come with a great idea, they have the dress, and you're motivated, and it comes together and works out really well. Then the person comes back and says it was great and you're like okay, now I understand why I do it. Those moments are few and far between. Then you have moments when you're late and the customer's pissed off, and your brain's on something else and you make a mistake. That happens and more attention is called to those things then when a moment goes right. Very few people call you back and say it was great.

But if they come back that means it was great, no?

The advantage and disadvantage of this business is you're only as good as your last work – your history has no relevance. You tend to think that when a customer makes a decision she'll factor in the 10 years of good service, but you piss her off in the right way once and her decision won't be based on the history but on the last time you pissed her off.

Are there any hairdressers that inspire you?

There are a ton of people that I research. Orlando Pita is one of my favourites because he takes hair to another level. It's all organic for him, it's painting, it's sculpting, it's creating. This particular guy is always trying to push the envelope and he's a strong, strong influence in the marketplace. Hair is a bit like fashion in the sense that some key guys put forth trends and then it gets diffused in the marketplace, or it gets tagged onto the fashion shows, and that gets diffused in the media and from there that's where we take our inspiration.

For contact information, services and prices visit www.nuda-online.com