The lee stafford story - legends lounge

From starting out in the industry without a single hairdressing qualification to creating his own academies to transform the way that colleges educate their hairdressing students; Lee Stafford shared his quite incredible journey on the Legends Lounge stage at Salon International. Did you know that Lee started out as a hairdresser in his mum’s front room with no hairdressing education? That’s one of the little anecdotes he revealed to the audience in his Legends Lounge interview. He explained that when he went on to open his first salon, Staffords, it was a dilapidated building that he’d fallen in love with. With no budget to refurbish it, he went with a haunted house theme to maximise the character of the building. This developed a trend for creating his own salons with a theme - that he admitted were like Marmite and may have cost him clients. Realising the value of education, Lee sent himself on as many courses as possible, until he felt ready to enter Awards to start to make his mark on the industry. Again budget was an issue that forced him to get creative. As he had just £1,000 to spend, he ruled out professional models and set about creating a character study instead. The timeless results won him the title of Men’s Hairdresser of the Year and changed his life. After talking about his products – and admitting that some of his personal favourites actually didn’t last – he shared tales of his move into television. He revealed that his one minute management technique – where if someone does something good you congratulate them in the moment on the spot, and if someone does something bad you take them to one side and correct them in the moment – endeared him to TV Producers, who invited him to manage the salon on Celebrity Scissorhands for Children in Need. During the third series of the TV show he met his wife Jessica and he explained how special it is to be able to watch the first moments of their relationship back – and how dramatically she and their children (three, with plans for another two in the future) have transformed him. Finally, Lee spoke about his new passion for education and his partnership for providing academies in colleges with a goal to raise standards and create consistency.