ep38 – Nicholas French

This week I’m with a great friend who is a 13-time NAHA finalist and winner. His work has appeared in almost every industry magazine in the world. He’s been on Oprah, CNN, and Good Morning America. He has styled for movies, music videos, and fashion runways. Here is Mr Nicholas French!

• One of the best pieces of advice that Nicholas got from his father when he was only 10 years old: “Keep your eyes open 24 hrs a day because you never know what you are going to see”. You have to always be on the lookout for inspiration. 

• Nick explains how he makes the distinction between fantasy and avant garde.

• Nicholas’s favorite quote: “Fashion is fleeting but technique stays the same.”

Complete Transcript

Chris Baran 0:00
How great would it be to get up close and personal with the beauty industry heroes? We love and admire and to ask them how did you learn to do what you do? I’m Chris Baran, a hairstylist and educator for 40 plus years, and I’m inviting all our heroes to chat and share the secrets of their success.

This week’s guest is a personal friend of mine as well, and I’m really excited about this one. His his father, Freddie French was the inventor of the Denman brush. He is 13 times NAHA finalist and winner he has taught hundreds of 1000s of stylists throughout to catch this 28 countries he has styled hair for celebrities, and royalty. Wink wink he’s a Brit. And he is produced numerous alternative hairshows raising money for leukemia at the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Albert Hall in London, new teeth. He has worked in print runway, Video and Motion Picture, as well. And I’m sure that’s gonna lead us to a ton of great stories. His work has appeared in probably every industry magazine in the world. He has guest appearances on the today’s shows in America, Asia and Sydney. He’s been on Oprah, a Good Morning America and CNN and and he’s had the lifetime achievement award with bionics. So let’s get let’s get into this week’s headcase Mr. Nicolas French, Nicolas French, my friend, it has been way too damn long since we’ve got together and had some chats. I know that. It’s usually when Brian and Sandra Smith and you and I are together and we have some good chats. So I just want to say welcome. It is great to have you on board onto head cases, Mr. French, if I might call you that.

Nicholas French 2:02
It was a pleasure to be here. As always,

Chris Baran 2:05
listen, first off before we go, and for anybody, there is people watching and listening. But for those of you watching, and if you’re listening right now, it is the more the end of the day. So Nick and I are going to have your glass while it’s going on. So cheers to you.

Nicholas French 2:19
Cheers. Cheers, everybody.

Chris Baran 2:21
Cheers, everybody success out there? You know, I say I don’t know. For sure. I know that we’ve crossed paths, at shows and so on for right now. But I think the last thing that we really did together was when we were at in New York at the exchange. And there was Kris Sorbie, Ruth Roche. You and I and we did all the planning for it. And then Kris got pulled away twice on that and it ended up being Ruth you and I doing this program. So it was Was that fun for you? Did you have a good time doing it?

Nicholas French 3:03
I think it was amazing. Because to me, Ruth and yourself. I can remember to specific hairstyles that very inspired me years and years back to help me develop what I do you know, and, and it was fun to work together. And it was so easy. It’s like we’ve worked together forever. And you know, what it’s all about is is really, you know, not best address in the world, which is people seeking different things to deal with hair. And I mean, that’s the motto. I remember throwing some years ago, I said doing a show and I saw you throwing this hair and it was somebody’s head and I thought God knows. That’s very interesting. And I found out was with Velcro. So I did something with Velcro 20 years later. And, and I remember doing the same thing at a condiment, but it was cool the presentation. It was amazing. And I remember doing that black plastic bag over the top because I didn’t want it to surprise you because that was a big moment in my life. And I created it. And I won’t know how they look, which was velcroed. And with Ruth, it was oh gosh, it was porcupine quills. Yeah, I went to a studio. And this guy said this girl yesterday was doing this Tim porcupine course and a couple of left on the floor. I thought wow, that’s cool. And I use those for years. And I surprised her because I did a hairstyle and she won’t know how as well with that. Yeah. It’s a matter of it’s like I was listening to an interview that grace Codrington, who was one of the sort of, you know, she was a session sort of editor of Vogue for 40 years and, and a model as well and she said that Norman Parkinson, who was a photographer that my father worked with, for many, many years, he did 1000s sensor pages and VO. So keep your eyes open 100% 24 hours a day because you never know what you’re gonna see. Yeah. And that’s what I did. I remember you doing that. I remember seeing you doing a hair cut. And I was working for Clairol all the time logics, which was part of Claro. And I suppose in this Haircut, it’s fantastic. You are close enough for me to copy it.

So I got so fed up with all everybody’s shouting and screaming are very English. Very quiet. And I thought, Oh, I’ll try that out. So I had this girl, she’s beautiful, do anything to my hair. And I copied it was you’re about 30 yards feet away. And somebody said, that’s not the trend, Nicholas, that is not our trend. I said, it’s my version darling.

Chris Baran 5:51
It’s funny, you tell that I think we got off stage and we’re having some shits and giggles about that after and you said that? I always thought you were just joking. But and I’m sure you still are to a degree because you, you know, listen to the stuff that you do. And I think that your mind is, is amazing, simply, and I think you said it earlier is if you just keep it open. And I think that just like what was said there? They that’s not our style. But is it the audience’s style to do news, you know, when you’ve always been a disrupter, they’ve always taken something that other people haven’t done, done it with taste. And then and then it people love it. Because I think that’s always the thing that happens in there is how do you put emotion? How do you put taste? You know, because? And this is a question I wanted to ask you because, well, you know, I talked a little bit about it in the opening. But the reality is, you are literally the and I’m going to put a capital T capital H capital E the master when it comes to the avant garde. And, and but I think that there’s a difference between having them on guard having a tasteful and not having it look fantasy. So if you had to define to people, in your words, what is the difference between fantasy like if I had to look at something and say that’s fantasy? This is avant garde? And it’s debatable, but what what would what would you put out?

Speaker 2 7:24
My dad I’m writing the book at the moment for my dad from 1922. And the French family of hair to 2022 actually is 100 years and when I was a boy, when I was 10 years old, I remember going to an antique store with my dad and we saw this parrot in a glass dome. Polly died May the eighth 810 At that time, Chris, and he said well carry it home in Chelsea in London. So it’s all cobbled streets. Don’t drop it, don’t drop it, don’t drop it. And, of course got home with it. Is it next Wednesday, you’re not going to school, you come to the studio. And I show you what avant garde hair is it’s not fantasies, he said it’s fine arts and I went and I was 10 years old and never forget it. I’ve got the picture home is fantastic. And there was a girl inside a glass dome with this amazing hairstyle. And it was sort of feathers and stuff and goodness knows what. And he had a tube in the top so she could breathe now keep polishing the glass. And he did this beautiful photograph. And it just got the idea from a parrot stuffed parrot in an antique store in London on a Sunday with his 10 year old son, you know, carry me and it’s just it’s not you’ve got to really, the reason I did avant garde hair, I never did it, until very late in my career was to really show that we’re not just hairdressers, we’re really artists. And that was my concern. And I And when I did shows or seminars or photoshoots. And I saw all this stuff going on. And I still see it, bless them, you know, people come up to me with a girl with you know, she’s got feathers in her eyes. She’s got all this going on. It’s all too much but, but they’re trying how never say oh, that’s awful. You know, I used to say that years ago. I don’t say anymore. That’s okay, that’s a good starting point. Now, if you look at what I managed to step into very young models, hardly any makeup. It’s all the hair was a hero, you know, because we’ve got to get it through. It’s like, you know, it’s like Trevor Sorbie’s first wedge haircut was extraordinary. And you got two pages in vogue. My mission was to get hairdressers recognized as hairdressers, you know, rather like Valentino, you know, Armani and Calvin Klein and all those sort of people and, and that was my sort of mission. That was my dad’s Mission, my mission afterwards and so it’s really, you know, avant garde is a very loose term. And I think of it as fine art, I think. Yeah, and I won’t do anything anymore because unless I can find something that’s that standalone. That’s different. That’s never been seen before. It has to be original. Not me too. Yeah. And I think a lot of people do me too. And, you know, I coach people that you probably do for now and stuff. And, you know, I said, we got to think you’ve got to think differently, but think out of the box. I like the tear sheets. I mean, recently I was asked by Emilio Pucci by the company by laudomia Pucci to create some windows for Art Basel in in Miami for Art Basel. We’ve in Miami I have up as a week and then, like Dior do an amazing window, Christine, you know, listening to this window and then we have four does an incredible window Louie V town does incredible window. And so we want to go back to Alba who did our hair in the 60s, and Emilio Pucci loved hairdressing, big hair, different things with her. And she showed me the pictures ladonia She was in Florence. And it could you recreate that, but sort of make it fresh and modern and new. And, you know, it’s our brand. And, and that was that was an amazing project for me to do. Because at the end of the day, I made it out of all pure hair. And, and she said to me on the phone, it’s just mind blowing what you’ve done here, Nick, and also, we didn’t believe you could do it because you had all these colors and our clothes are all these colors. I said they won’t clash, they won’t clash, it’s gonna like find out and I had all these shapes and, and the people from M lm v h relevance, who own all these companies now said, oh, you know, the young girl said, Oh, Nicholas, I’m calling from Florence. Can I have tear sheets? And I said no, because they do not exist. I can do drawings of the silhouettes and the shapes, but I can’t give you tear sheets because it doesn’t not exist. Albert did it in a different way. In the soundstage, she was brilliant. But you know, it looks a little bit sort of dated and make it marry the closing when we did it. And the drawings and I said you can’t use them they’re not that good. And in fact that’s

Chris Baran 12:30
that’s what the that’s what the artists do as well don’t they? Like the when when the designers do it? They don’t have something to go by they have to do drawing because it doesn’t exist yet.

Speaker 2 12:40
No, absolutely. And I did the drawings and then very quickly wonderful thing that happened because I said don’t publish them they’re not very good. And Women’s Wear Daily published my my drawing one of the hairstyles and said this is an academia wrote out we chose Nick because of this, I thought this is brilliant because it made hairdressers feel part of fashion. Yeah. Then on top of that, Amelia Pucci himself is long gone. He did the clothes for a doctor Vita and wonderful film. And his drawings for Adult Literature Vita were on one side of the, you know, the invitation card to come to the event. And on the other side, where my drawings are real, it’s actually hooked, right. And they came in, they saw this and it was, it was, you know, it was out of this world. But isn’t it funny because it’s what one of the things I wanted to achieve as hairdressers recognized as artists in a, in a creative environment, not just a 15 minute runway show, but something installation that was going to stay there for a week, which was fun. And

Chris Baran 13:41
it what I love that you said those about getting hairdressers recognized because, you know, there’s very few people out there that will take that step over the line and take that risk to do something different and be judged, you know, good, bad or indifferent. You know, because every time we do something that’s on the edge, I remember doing some work and then people look I remember I remember doing a podcast for for somebody else. And they said if you did a if you did a another haircut, before you talk about XYZ, whatever we were talking about, he said it’ll pull more people in to talk to do listen to the podcast or watch the podcast. So I mean, you know me I did, I did this. This was about, I guess four years ago, and I did this mullet that had a fringe that went to here all the way to the top of the of the sides were shaved back was long. And and it was it was interesting while that it was while we were I was talking to talking to the hair cut through which was you know, sped up in about three, four minutes long. People were commenting from all over Oh, that’s ugly. Ooh, you know, that’s herbal looking and Osa, and you know, I think at one point in my life, I would have went okay, good, I would have been hurt. But the reality is, is I knew that was going on. I knew it was coming. And I knew you if I did it right away that some people aren’t going to like it. And other people are going to say, oh, that’s spot on. That’s what’s going on with trend now. And I see that you do all that you do that all the time. You always seem to be one step ahead of everybody. In the looks you do.

Nicholas French 15:29
Because I think, you know, like I think there’s only one Smithy. Brian Smith said to me once, and he said, I found this thing is brilliant. There is what is it? Is that a trend is a trend if somebody wants it? Yeah. And I thought that was brilliant. Yeah. And then the other thing, which I found, fashion is fleeting. Fashion is fleeting, it’s always changing, but technique really stays the same. Yeah, there’s a few little quirky bits where you can change it and creating waves with the flat hands. But it’s basically it’s the most most difficult thing. And I think when I when I worked in, I was lucky enough to work in a lot of film and TV commercials. They were like films with great directors like Ridley Scott and Adrian Lyon and Miko Saracen was people. And there are a tickler for you know, absolute perfection and the old light and with real film, which is very different, or we do it in person, we do it in posts, no, you couldn’t do it in post, there was a $50,000 they were spending for an hour. I had to get it right, I had to get that. Right. And they were they were very cool and very helpful, of how you know how you work and the work ethic, their hair was amazing. It was just, you know, it’s rather like Robert, the Bruce, you know, you watch the spider climbing up and down, he kept falling down, we kept trying to get up to the top. And, you know, if you’re a young hairdresser trying to do it, I mean, I’ve went through all the turmoil I went through, I mean, you have to read it in the book, it’s too long to tell the story, but because I had a famous father, so he was famous, and I was a young, the youngest one who wants to get into the business and nobody else wanted to do it. I had a terrible time physically, mentally, and every other way. And, and I went, you know, I went to different companies and I did different things to get away from my dad. And and that’s when I started to grow as an artist. And I realized I realized I could do it on my own.

Chris Baran 17:24
How did your dad think that when you went to work with somebody else,

Speaker 2 17:28
very badly in a way, originally, he because I was I left school. And I went to a Swiss hairdressing school in Bern called Annie, H E. R. N. I. . It still exists in magnificent school. And they spoke Schweitzer Deutsch, which is a bit difficult, but since I learned a bit of French and they didn’t really understand what I was doing. So I was doing current pupils here red and they wanted to blond to something. But that was early days. And then I went from there, went back to work for my dad and I didn’t. It was too nerve racking. And so I walked around with drawings, which I can do rough drawings. I was very, very sick for six months, and I lay in bed drawing heads of hair and things I dreamed of doing. My brother sent me to New York, he had a job in New York and I drew outside Kenneth cell on Vidal Sassoon in New York in the late 60s 1960s. I started drawing the hairstyles I saw coming out. And then I went back to London. Then I went with the drawings and I met Robert Adele, who was one of the big managers it’s assumed and said, Oh, my goodness, you can draw and I said, I can’t cut hair at all. I’ve got these big shears, you know, I just think she is no cut off my knuckle. The test. Broker very kindly said, Well, you know, Vidal is worried because he did father. So Vidal Sassoon rang up my father said, Well, I’ve got Nick here, you know, and my dad has never want to speak to him again. So I spent three years really not speaking to my dad working there. And then I went to Canada with Martin Lewis and in Toronto a couple of years later, how did

Chris Baran 19:10
your dad what happened? How did you and your dad what it gets together?

Speaker 2 19:14
Chris, you know, and I went to Switzerland, and I worked in the Russian restaurant washing up at night. And I got five pounds from Sassons and five pound from washing out. So maybe 10 pounds. So I stayed in this room. And then I went to Canada with Martin Lewis to work at brutal creciendo little Salem, in Toronto, and the Toronto Dominion building. And there’s two of them now there was one of them then. And I you know, I was there for nine months or something. He wasn’t very successful. And I came back and I tapped on my dad’s door in Chelsea. And he opened it up was in all the flights. And so theprodigal son has returned and said I suppose you want bacon and eggs. I said, oh my goodness, I’m dying for it. So that was sort of You know, and I said to him, I can’t really work with your dad because it’s too much pressure, you’ve got 27 businesses, you’ve got all this stuff going on. It’s too much for me, you know, I’m just going on in his do hair really. And

Chris Baran 20:13
shadow right, it’s huge shadow to live under.

Nicholas French 20:17
Oh, and I worked with him quite a lot, you know. And then after that I went to, you know, some marvelous salons like Derrick row. And he recently passed a few years ago as a lovely man. And I was a hair cutter at Sassoon. So I didn’t really do long hair at all. I didn’t know how to do long hair, and a girlfriend of mine called Ingrid Chloe, who was 22 years older than me. And she worked in the salon and she was a tough German hairdresser. Brilliant. And she worked with Marie Claire, who was from Korea, in Paris, and one for hairdresser called Spencer. And they said, Well, you know, coming into dirt road needs to do long hair. And I said, I don’t know how to do it. So we will, she said, We will teach you one hairstyle, then that’s it. But because I could cut hair, and they didn’t really they were bad hair cutters. I mean, they were terrible. Because they’re all in the dressing of hair like Kurita and beautiful finish in the hair. So I said you teach me everything about finishing hair. I teach you everything about cutting hair. So that’s how I had this wonderful relationship with Eric row for seven years. And then I then I went to night into I’ve opened up this salon in in Atlanta, and it’s called Blood, Sweat and scissors. So it’s the first unisex salon in America. So I went there work there for a bit, which is another long story Best Buy the book and read it was too long to tell you but you know, I mean, the first client says to me, I want to shag you know in English that means something different. So

Chris Baran 21:59
I think most people know here but shag would be how would you put it delicately?

Yeah, so

Speaker 2 22:13
yeah, I say that. Then I came back and then I’ve worked in. I went to Molton Brown, which was an incredible Saturday. Yes, Michael Collins started who is a Sassoon hairdresser. And he didn’t believe in anything that was not looking very natural. Because in the 60s, it was sort of uniformity 70s It became individuality where everybody wanted to look their own. Even if they looked like Nirvana. You know, they’re very dreary, everything’s very soft and long. And Molton Brown was all about that. And then I moved on to I got head hunted by Glenn B, who owned a salon called Harvey Nichols, which was a trendy sell on in the trendy store in those days in the late 70s. And I went there. And that’s when I got my love of doing something different with hair. You know, I, I said that I went into the office for Harvey Nichols. And, you know, I said, Why? Why are you using session hairdressers? I can do here, the photographs. You didn’t move these Vogue ads and everything else. And you know, Harper’s Bazaar. And the guy said, Give me one chance I try you out next week, turn up with your stuff. And I remember it was it was Glenview. So in those days are very young. Andrew Finkelstein was in charge of me. And I said, I’m going to do this 10 pages in verbs Elmo, how much is that going to cost us nothing. I’ve got it for free. It’s going to have a hair by Nicolas French. Glen, we sell on Harvey Nichols, you know, perfect. And I went to do it. Of course, he was so beautiful. I’m African American girl called Jan Stevens. And I got all the pictures, put them on the wall. And they said, it’s, we can’t do African American hair. I said, but it’s Vogue you know, it’s not about doing the hair. It’s about creating the photograph and the whole thing and the whole why gosh, you know, Columbia is now in vogue, please, you know, and that was the beginning of my love of doing the hair photography and I did Jerry Hall for 500 London buses on the side of the buses and and then then people said we’ve got an agent and I started growing into my own skin if you will by experience that was quite brave because I really didn’t know what I was doing. But I learned on the job if you will, you know and that you talked

Chris Baran 24:40
about session I want you to do you remember the Dalmatian dog story that you told me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that whole everybody that because that I just found that one an incredible story.

Nicholas French 24:52
Well, because I did crazy see. It was in the punk era. And so I did this Punk Dog And in in England for this real it was a real dog. Yeah, not to make him look like a punk. So because it was a bad guy who was meeting in a pub irregular guy and he had a regular dog. And then he met a punk in a pub with a punk dog. And it was about Yorkshire bitter beer, which is a famous TV commercial. Ridley Scott did, who is obviously as you know, is a brilliant film director now. But he directed hundreds and hundreds of TV commercials and, and, and so and so I would really Scott associates have worked with them all the time. So I got known for special effects. So anyway, I get this phone call. And I go into the studio with all my kit and Shepperton Studios. And I say where am I going? Oh, you’re going out the back. I said why normally I work in that room? No, no. So what you’ve got to do, this is the dog. You know, I love animals. So that’s great. Now, this is a stuffed dog. So what are you talking about? You got to do the sports the same as that dog, the spotted dog on the staff dog because he’s going to go up in a balloon, we will never get the balloon back. Right after that went out. But they had a wire on the balloon, which is unfortunate. And so they filmed the whole thing anyway, so I’ve got I got it matched up roughly, you know, is black and white dogs. It wasn’t too difficult to do. And anyway, at the end of the day, the prop man came to rob, you know, Where’s, where’s it? We pulled the balloon down it we managed to save the dog was outside $5,000 of his taxi term is money. And he said

Chris Baran 26:34
it was not a stuffed dog. What was a real dog that was dead and stuffed?

Nicholas French 26:40
Yeah, that’s it. What have you done? I took it I had to marry that I had to do the same spots as a live dog. You have to get them off. You have to get them off. I said, Oh, come on. What can I do? So in those old studios, they had these old big back washers, right? So stiff. Like that. So I put him back like this on the back like that into the basin. And I covered him up with and I thought what can I use to get rid of these thoughts? And I thought well hang on a minute. There’s toilet bleach. That’s all I could find. So I put it on I started shampooing it. Do you remember years ago? How we’re used to as desperation mix up shampoo with bleach? Yeah, desperate. That’s it. So I thought that’ll do the job. And it was midnight, and I was kidding. In those days, you’d get no, it was unionized. You got no lunch break, no late break. And then you got over over midnight, you got a day’s extra money. They went over one o’clock, you got like two days extra money. So you know, it was costing a fortune, you know, and I heard Ridley Scott come with a producer down the hall. And I’m shampooing away, I’ve got a bit of music in the background of doing his feet. And he’s got all these spots all over. And the prop man said Harry, and really was shouting at this guy saying God, you know, the loss of Fortune today, the overtime is terrible. And he said we’re gonna make it up tomorrow. And he said, we’ll make it up tomorrow, and then really burst into laughter as he walked past my door. He said, I’ve got the most expensive hairdresser in London, shampooing a dead dog in a base that says it all let’s just get it. Let’s do tomorrow’s another day. Let’s just this is crazy, you know, and we did with the guy never refuse to do anything I want I want their hair and the shape of a bird attacked cactus, and and a tab. Oh, it’s no problem. And so that’s how I learned how to do foundations for everyone. God here. Yeah, because I was forced into it because I needed you know, we all need money. So I needed to pay my bills. So, you know, the tap was frequently more share. The characters was like brittle, broken the hair. And the flower. The bird was obviously flower here it was for our Berta TRESemme a sort of shampoo or something. Yeah. And then they’d have it on their head. And they, they’d have all these pieces on their head. And it goes through this sort of Abba’s type light into like a waterfall in South America or something. And then they come out like Imani models, you know, it’s like, so I had to create a lot of things apart from having my salons in England, and working there on weekends mainly, and then I had to do TV commercials and then I had to work for these other people. So and then I started doing the shows because people were interested in in the finish of the hair that I could create shows interest How did

Chris Baran 29:35
you get started and how did you get started on in shows? Was it well, I’ve had you had I want to do it or somebody approached what happened,

Nicholas French 29:44
you know, brilliant, brilliant, you know, I had a cell phone service and salary which is a suburb 70 minutes outside London and had a sale on there and then round the corner. Is this sort of heart, okay, and it was damaged. hair brushes. And there was a guy called Chris Berridge, who was a he was a big guy at resume eventually. Retired is amazing. He’s great. So great friend of mine. And he comes into the salon watches me doing some hair said Nick can have a quick chat. I said, Yeah, well, I’ve got this thing going on in Redding. And I’ve got it. Can you do a few models for me, I’m got any money to pay a couple 100 pounds or something. I said, God as exciting. So I’ve got all the daughters of my top clients in the Salem, it looked beautiful. And we went down to Redding, to do this hair show. And we did it. And there’s a few 100 people there and everything else. And he said, you know, you’re quite good at doing this. So you can help me out in the future said anything you want me to do? I do. So I got the hang of it. I remember the next time he phoned me up. He said, Oh, can you come to Hong Kong? What was that? I thought it was a restaurant in Chinatown.

So I went around there with a few clients to otters. So quite pretty looking, did some hair and they said, Well, this is a new take on it. This is quite interesting. So you know, Can you can you help us out in the future? And I said, Yeah, sure. And I remember being Brian and Brian Smith had a Hair Club in Dunfermline, in Scotland, where he invited people up. He invited people from all over the world. It was amazing. He had all kinds of people went out there and did amazing sessions. And I went out there and he invited me out there. And, oh, it was a tough thing, because Scottish hairdressers are pretty tough. And they’re very good. And they don’t particularly like English people, especially in that period of time. So I went up there, and they gave me this terrible model Jakarta hair. And I looked around the room and they had like, return Irving Rask. And it was in a bar actually, which was appropriate. And then they had the so sound called are so good. And they were marvelous hairdressers, they had all the top Scottish hairdressers there and this girl had had a perm, bleach and goodness knows what. And you know, when you do a hair cut, it gets worse and worse and worse, and you’re hoping for something to happen. So please, God. Yeah. And it was just one of those days. And, and I, you know, I, after about an hour, I said, You know what I went out to the bars have a large brandy. And I said, if you don’t like it, there’s nothing I can do about it. But safer this afternoon. We’ve got some interesting things I’m doing that I used to do, you know, for quite famous people. So in the afternoon, I started doing these foundations we call sponges with tights and cotton wool and all kinds of things on long hair. And then we got really, that then I sort of changed the whole feel of the session. And, you know, it’s like you said to me just gave you that model just to see what you could do with it, basically. And anyway, what happened was that week I got a phone call from them, and we’re doing a Denman. rakin, joint show in Hong Kong, and it’s on the Kowloon side. So this is a long time ago, when the British was sort of rolling it. And can you do that said, Yeah, sure, you know, and so I spoke up, I ran up Brian Smith and as well. smithy I was calling Smith. Yes, Murphy, can you? Can you come next weekend, and my staff are driving me crazy. And I’m so sick that I’m not going to take them. I’m gonna say I’m gonna take you. You said but you haven’t seen me do a wee haircut. And that’s. And so we met and we went there. And that was really that the international part of what I did intercoiffure I worked with in Atlanta Jamison shores in 1969. I did demos there, added bits and pieces. And the first demo I ever did in England, apart from the Denman one in Redding, was in Guernsey, which is a tiny island. And I worked for Wella wants to do a hair cutting thing. And they took me into a bar but they tend to always bring me into a pilot and a wide stage where’s the stage? He said Don’t Don’t you get it, you push the tables together, you stand you set you get chairs, you sit your model on the chair and do so whatever and it was 800 pounds I think it was quite good money for those days. So I did it so then after that, you know it became the more idea the more I got published in the magazines and stuff the more people found out so we can you do this for us? Can you do that for us and and I will never work for any one person. And then I started doing some of the London shows. And then people say Oh, can you come and do this thing in Australia? Can you come to America can come here and then do Right made a great friend of mine said, uh, you got to come on to me around America, which is another long story. But

Chris Baran 35:07
was that was that when he was with xodus? Or when that when he was at matrix?

Nicholas French 35:11
Absolutely. When he was with Derek sauce. Yeah. And he was he said a lot of stuff was out us. So that introduced me to the American market. And you know, and it seemed to be a successful formula that we put together and then it just, you know, you learn. I mean, I think I’ve done I did nine trips to Hong Kong, I did eight to Australia, Japan, I toured Japan, which the nether in the early 80s. And I was a sort of like, pioneer, really, in many respects, the big companies went but nobody ever heard of Nicholas French, I think it was like, Dwight really was a marvelous advisor in those days to me, you know, because he’d been everywhere done everything, you know. So he said, No, you don’t do that there, you do this, you do that? Oh, my goodness. So I got into it. And then I got into, you know, a lot, a lot of British sort of photoshoots and things. And I started doing my own photo shoots, and people started publishing them. And it’s, you know, it’s very interesting, really how it sort of developed, you know,

Chris Baran 36:15
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Nicholas French 37:20
Oh, gosh, I mean, I can’t even tell you. I mean, I think this shows that we we really, we started to turn people’s heads when we did different things. And so different things weren’t so clever. You know, I remember I went to Canada once. It was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the Canadian Pacific hotel a long, long time ago. And they said, Oh, great, you know, we’ve sold 500 seats and a wellness coach, you know, and it was in the days of block stages where they have blocks, blocks, and they put them together remember this? And anyway, they sold another 100 tickets, but what they didn’t tell me that the blocks have been been taken away. So they said you have so some rehearsal, I had 53 steps. And then it’s in darkness, Chris, because the organizers you have to do, you have to help them a bit. So Nicolas, got this Id come out. I’ve always beautiful arms around you in the toe. And the lights come out with what was beautiful cars, and you pick them and do them. I said, That’s a terrible idea. But we’re paying this money. That’s fine. I’ll do it. So I counted out the 54 steps. And when I got to about 43, I fell flat into this. Luckily, rather a large lady in the front row. I fell off. And I had a bump on my head, which still sort of exists to this day. And he got bigger and bigger as the cameras got on it. But no, it was well, I mean, there’s so many disasters that a lot of people didn’t know, you know, about I went to Taiwan once. And, you know, you have to deal with the flow. So I went through an interpreter and I said, What do you what’s, you know, what do you want me to do here? I’ve got all these models. Oh, oh, we’ve got an idea. You’ve got to do what he wants. But here’s the money behind the company. So I said, Okay, what’s the idea? Oh, Nicholas, we have twin girls. So you okay. And there’s a tent in the middle of a department store was seven different, you know, like, you could see people around is to create chaos. And we had 3000 people and said, twin girls go out looking sane when they come back, change hair look different. That’s how ridiculous is that? Oh, you must do it. Nicholas, you must do it. So I had all these weeks and things. I made them totally different. Nobody knew what we were doing. They didn’t even realize we’ve done it on Twitter. It was just a ridiculous idea, you know, but Do you have to do what people sort of want? And then other things when you get a you’ve probably done with earphones where you have to do. Like in Singapore, we had the Mandarin languages, which is the translation, a translation, isn’t it? And you get these people in the booths. And I said, Well, Nicholas, this is the script is what you gave us, you have to be exactly that a script, you can’t go off as a one. Because it because that’s what the interpreters are telling the audience, you know, and then they had this beautiful girl who’s going to be like, on stage with me like to interpret if it went wrong. And I did her hair and everything. And she was about 22 or something. Absolutely stunning. So we go on there. And it was one of those things where we bought beautiful wardrobe from England, I mean, really spectacular wardrobe for matrix and they spent a huge amount of money on this, they did a fabulous job with me, supporting me, you know, and I go there and I have storyboards. You know, there’s a storyboard. So this is the makeup, this is the hair, this is what is kept, the clothes are going to look like, okay, and so the guy, you know, lovely little guy comes in with his beautiful gown, orange cow, and he’s got this terrible sort of, sort of Western bar waistcoat to monitor. And I said, Excuse me permission to speak, but it doesn’t quite look like the, we need to take that away. And then the makeup came look like leprosy. You know, it was like, it was a living hell to get this right. And then this girl, who was interpreter, and I said, this is how you remember all the tricks. And we’ve done that for years together, you know, the tips and tricks. This is how you make a hairpin disappear. The simple stuff. That means more than the whole show. Yeah. And I said, this, I put the pin in backwards. And then look with the camera, the guy got the camera, and the hair closed behind. It was like magic. And so that’s how you make it happen disappeared. And this girl kept going, oops. Every time I did something, it was interesting. He did it was a half time, you can stop moving, you know. It was ridiculous. And then after that they loved me. So I went to all these other I mean, the things that happen are just you know, people trying to steal a wardrobe, you know, from the audiences. You have all that going on. But it’s a beautiful wardrobe. And we were in REM Phuket we’re actually where was it we went to which was brilliant, called Mad matrix Australia destination. Fantastic. And the CEO of matrix of that time came to Phuket where we had the wonderful Benny Takanini working with me, oh, my goodness, and Joe Jordan is a brilliant car is from England. And we get there. And for some reason, that organization organizing people. I won’t mention any names here. So we don’t feel well, you get it together. I’ll be back in two days. I said fine. You know, the CEO from Australia was said, any help you need, and I’ll be here for years, right? You know, I can stop those people stealing the wardrobe and running out the door. To 1000 hairdressers from all over, all over, like everywhere from India from everywhere, you know, and it was fabulous. And so we do this show, and we get it all ready and rehearse it. You know, Ben is brilliant. Joe is fantastic. And all the choreography is done, everything’s done. And then this lady comes and said, I don’t like it. I said we’ve got an hour before the people come in. Oh, I don’t know. I think it should be shopping girl in New York. Girl Meets Boy in New York shopping. So I didn’t even understand that. Instead of like, you know, China, you know, it’s not gonna get it. And it is, oh, it was an absolute nightmare. But we got we got through that. But the CEO of Australia said, if you can go through that you’re coming to Australia to do this show. And he had this idea. They always have an idea because they’d say hell yeah. Yeah, they’re in charge. You know, they’re fantastic. People really. I said, What, what’s going on here? Oh, and Errol Douglas came with us that time Jojo is amazing. Great friend of mine. I miss him terribly. And so we go to this huge ballroom and there’s Alice in Wonderland stage with a table and all the tea cups and everything laid out. So what’s going on here? Oh, what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna do an avant garde segment, and it’s all going to be Alice in Wonderland. So we’ll sit down and have tea and everything else. And Joe Jordan’s a haircut. He said I don’t do ABA and God said I don’t want I do it for you. And make it simple. Use a clippers. You know, I Help You I do you work. I set you up for success and them anyway, all the people and then the people came from Asia because it was like the SAT about 50 people this table, and we’re so we’re already with the models and we’re thinking, Okay, this is great, we’re gonna do their hair and everything like that. And then we turn around, and all the Asian people were sitting at the table, it was for them in the middle, the

Chris Baran 45:22
new models

Nicholas French 45:27
are falling off stages. That’s a that’s interesting, you know, getting to places I mean, you know, I went to, I went to Venice once in the winter, and in those days many years ago, in the early 80s, very early 80s. And it was for L’Oreal. I went there for an hour expecting to see the late, wonderful Joshua Galvin, somebody working and the agent had had the right to change the people. And we turned up or turned out, we might we’ll say who the hell you are, we got to do this. And it was in the winter, it was fascinating. So all these things, you’ve got to go with the flow. And then when you get when it gets down to it, just do some beautiful hair. Yeah, just do something. Even if it’s simple, you know, even if it’s simple, even if it’s on a mannequin head, just do something that’s absolutely breathtaking. You know, I remember being doing a show once matrix and the CEO comes out with a wonderful man. And he said, everybody got around, this is the way I want their hair to look. You can see your face in the hair so shiny. So now said, Nick, what product did you use? And I said, Nothing. I just use a blow dried it with a demo. Making working for a company we’re paying you you need to

Chris Baran 46:48
make up a product. In those days. As

Nicholas French 46:51
you know, Chris, people could not finish here. So

Chris Baran 46:56
where did you learn? Where did you learn how to finish hair like that?

Nicholas French 46:59
I learned it my dad was determined brush. And Sassoon is when I worked for them. All you all you have is a diamond brush to you know to actually blow dry their hair. And it’s quite interesting. The tension you can get on a blow, blow brush and it’s like I remember Chris Benson and I did a program for matrix and we had all the trainers and we said you know what? I said to Chris let’s get them to do long mannequin head. No sectioning clips wet and blow dry it perfectly. And you know what? Everybody went mad. They were they were sweating. They were struggling. They’re freaking out. I said that’s that’s that’s that’s one of the first things I used to teach what’s assumes is just to work with the determinant that the heavy one you know, and the nine roll. Yeah, because in my dad’s time my dad invented the Brasserie term and Dean but for back brushing, they actually put volume in the hair with back brushing. And John Cornell who left my dad went to sins and so since they will show me what you do was ready without their friends who actually did this and then through I didn’t want to do that won’t suit me, but and he worked out how to blow dry hair and opposite drays take all the volume out whenever with a German. So that’s yeah, that’s the end of the story. And I think there’s to make a couple 100,000 a month to him and Dean after all these years. And it was invented in 1938 for my dad’s hairstyle called Design disorder, which was when hair actually moved and nobody likes it. That’s another story. But other disruptive right? Yeah, you know, I was trying to disrupt this guy playing tennis this morning. But He disrupted me.

Chris Baran 48:48
What, what, when it comes to this? What what pushes you? I mean, everybody knows what you do you love it, the fact that you have the ability to make beautiful hair, like long beautiful hair, have waves, it’s polished, it’s shiny, and you have the ability to cut a beautiful head of hair, you have the ability to make avant garde and it’s still tasteful. But what pushes you Why do you do what you do?

Nicholas French 49:18
I think I think that, you know, my dad, my dad, you know, had a he was a wonderful man. But he he ended up in a very bad way. And he he was very depressed about his whole life and everything he did, and he did amazing things. And I and I always said I was sort of angry about that. So I thought I’ve got to do something, but I’ve got to take it to the next level. It’s like I was asked to judge a competition once in LA one of those Bravo sort of pilot things, you know, yeah, you know, we work stuff we’ve all done that and you go to the studio and these guys come and do hair and, and it was avant garde. And this guys came into this hair too. And And there was a team. And I said, Well, do you think, you know, when you do have on God hair when you do anything creative, you have to climb a mountain with the different camps, you know, like them to Everest, you have to get all these different levels, then you have to go beyond you know, then you have, then you finally get to the top of the mountain. Do you think you’ve got to the top of the mountain this than trying to be subtle, you know, and that there was an amazing, Veer, calm thing, big, big deal and say, oh, yeah, we’ve got to the top of the mountain. I said, Well, the problem you’ve had you haven’t you never turned around, because there’s another three mountains you need to climb. So in the back of my mind, Grace, I always said, Of course, I’ve got my wonderful wife, Carol said, What are you doing? It’s terrible. To do more, and she’s just, she’s subtle. Yeah, she always pushes me to next level notes. So when when I do things, I think of like, first of all, originality, it’s not me to, you know, and I don’t want I don’t want to have, I want it to be beautiful. I don’t want to be like, the models looking like The Walking Dead, you know, which we’ve seen a lot of, I want to be absolutely fabulous, represent our industry perfectly, you know, as it as a real, you know, Valentino kind of filter. Oh, my goodness, you know, absolutely stunning staff, I have to have that. And because it’s it’s a responsibility to the people I teach, and to the people that came behind me, and hopefully the people will take it on in the future, because with all this sort of disinformation, goodness knows what and that’s going on with, you know, some of its good some of his own for Ivanhoe, you know, you need to really establish the real deal. I’m not doing it in post, I’m doing it for real, it’s not going to be retouched, it’s going to be absolutely, you know, in an art form, what you can do with the hair, you know, I mean, like Ben is talking into yourself, he was some of the forerunners of, of seeking different shapes and stuff. And you have to go through the bat to get to the good. Yeah, you know, often and you have to have the ability to say, you know, what, you know, it’s like, my dad worked with Norman Parkinson, one of the greatest photographers now, I suggest people look him up, because he’s an amazing man. And my dad was five foot one, he was six foot seven. So it was, and he was a photographer, and that they went to a studio for a whole week, every night, to do test shoots to try and do different things with hair, with photography, you know, and sparks. His name was He was an amazing man. And at the end of the week, they were trying these different things. And Parkinson said, Freddie, don’t get the box of film, got the box of film. And he said, Go and get that bottle of brandy themselves and rebrand IKV when I was photographing him on the ladders, my dad went up and down the ladder, and this isn’t in the 1950s. And he said, you see the fire over there, throw everything into the day. He said, Why, say you didn’t want people to know, we did that kind of work. And that’s, you know, and I spent every night for six nights doing it. And they did some beautiful stuff together. But it was all part of that sort of courageousness and to really, you know, to embrace fear to get to the next level,

Chris Baran 53:23
you do have pieces that you make that that didn’t work out. I mean, everybody sees that they think, well, you must have done that last night. And now you’re photographing

Nicholas French 53:34
my studio in the Hamptons is like Hannibal Lecter his garage, it’s got something we’ve never seen the light of day. And then you’ve got little pieces of hair that I’ve done. Ooh, that’s interesting. I get to develop that. And you know, I do courses there and stuff for people that had some amazing people come, oh, my goodness, yeah, I’ve had some guy the other month came in, he said, I said, Well, you know, let’s have a coffee. Who did you work with? What do you want to get out of this whole thing? So I spent two years with Andy Warhol, I thought, What am I going to do for him? Yeah, brilliant hairdresser. But we found things that we could show each other, if you will, and it developed into something quite fresh and new. So it’s a matter of seeking different things and looking elsewhere from how hairdressing you know, it’s like, it’s like I came back from a studio a few years ago with my niece, who’s actually an artist. And I came back from that studio. And it was actually Jackson Pollock studio. And it had all these splashes on the floor, Crystal color and stuff, you know, and it was it was a sad sort of story was he you know, he died in a car crash and he was a he was a mess and his wife who was an incredible artist, one day said to him, he was in the he was in the same conversation as Picasso and Tucker. UNIQ he was huge, right? And he did beautiful regular sort of paintings and stuff. And his wife said, you know, do something different. Do something’s groundbreaking. You’re a you’re a drunkard or a drug addict. You know, you’re an idiot. So he goes out with a cigarette,

Chris Baran 55:16
like encouragement, right?

Nicholas French 55:18
No, she but she was brilliant. He was terrible. And he had this part of house paint and pigment. And he had a beer in his hand, a cigarette, that and the pigment. And it went up in the air, and it fell on the floor, and it splashed. And you’ve got this amazing sort of splashes and dollops of pain. And then he saw that, and then he came out of this whole thing started doing it. And he met Guggenheim, a woman who had an affair with whatever but he, he started doing it. And then time, Life magazine picked up on it. And then he started this whole new group of people painting like this. And then he’s painting last painting sell for 18 point 8 million, because he was all about the one thing I get into here, is having the idea. So we did, we went back to to my studio with my niece, my late brother’s daughter, who’s a wonderful artists, we went back there. We got horses here. And we started working with that and colors and, and dollar green paint. And it was quite extraordinary. How about that was actually quite original, and it looked really interesting. So you can get ideas from different places and convert it to hair, you know. And I mean, you know, when they said at the know, whatever all you can do it sounds it looks like here are some very English as a bit angrier, but it’s got to be here of some kind, you know, but um, and that’s where I get my ideas from things and I draw it out and with white chalk on black paper, because my dad years ago, we used to have salons that were like art galleries. There wasn’t a picture of hair in the window. And I said, Well, Friday, I called him, why don’t you have pictures for hair in the window. He said, because people will look at the picture. I don’t like that hairdo I won’t go in. So he made these sculptures of shells and golden as well, which I helped him with, as my childhood was basically spent assisting my dad making these sculptures but people went in, and then he did a drawing of what hairstyle he was going to do for the client, which is really clever. So you know, and then he had artist recreate drawings of the trends, and it was on everything. So he really didn’t want to do photographs. He did 1000s of photographs eventually. But originally, he just did drawings. So people will get a sensibility of the silhouette in extraordinary detail. But I have a responsibility for really, in my short lifetime, hopefully be a bit longer to really develop ideas and things. So people have a sensibility hairdressers of who we really are, we’re not just some sort of like, overnight success, because you have 10 million followers, we can actually create beautiful, beautiful hair. And as Chris always said, was, I’m not just our brother, Vivienne mackinder anchors and it said, I’m not just a hairdresser. I’m an artist. And I think that’s very prevalent. And that’s what I like the young people because it’s really what it is, is what, you know, you, you and I press and other people like us leave behind, you know, as a sort of pretext of who this future revolution of people is going to be, you know, and I think that’s, that’s problematic.

Chris Baran 58:36
Nick, you I remember, one time you said, and I hope I’m not bringing up something that I don’t my age, I can’t remember half of the stuff that happened to me. But I remember one time you telling the story about how somebody came up to you and I don’t know if you were at a show or a class or whatever it was, but I remember the story something to the effect. I’m paraphrasing where the person came up to you and said, How can someone I believe you said as old as you teach our younger stylists Do you remember that? It’s brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. What What? What how did you deal with that?

Nicholas French 59:13
Well, I’ll tell you this quick story. So that was actually in Singapore. Which was fascinating because beautiful place beautiful people beautiful, showing everything you know, it’s like, you look back and I never do anything like that again. And it’s you know, you think is gonna happen every day. It doesn’t. So at the end of the show, okay. And I remember it very clearly. You went this beautiful hotel in Singapore, right? It’s nine o’clock at night. I’ve been interviewed by eight journalists with interpreters. I’ve got the L’Oreal PR for Asia. Nicholas Kraft who was the CEO for the whole ovation. That’s to me, all that’s going on with an interpreter. Right. And everybody had a comment. I remember I had a black Condor gas on suit on I playing the part entirely. it and all the press people will love you always a fabulous show loved it, whatever, you know, etc, etc, etc. And then the last person comes up and and she looks a bit angry really. And she says, Why someone your age come here teach our young people how to hair. Right? So luckily I’ve worked with over that time and in the old days I was strangled. I was very

Chris Baran 1:00:28
metaphorically, metaphorically,

Nicholas French 1:00:31
metaphorically is Don’t say anything. So I thought, oh, what can I say? And by some stroke of luck outside this hotel Windows beautiful place, it was a huge advertising warning. Okay. And it had Calvin Klein it was in. It was a topless girl and a topless boy underwear. Right. And I said, Can I ask you a question? And then the interpreter was going to ask you a question. That’s it. How old is how old is Calvin Klein? I don’t know is 66 At that time, how old is Valentino is 79 At that time, how does Giorgio Armani and I said how it is Karl Lagerfeld nobody will ever know is probably 104 ponytail. Yeah. And I said how even you know, Alexander McQueen just passed he was like 51 I said to have had any influence on young people. You know, I went on she said oh, I don’t know. So think about it because there’s a wonderful bother. And a three a 3am call you know, get yourself down by four and have nice glass of champagne. It’s been a pleasure meeting you. It’s been fantastic being in Singapore, young people are in good hands. And off I went and that was my last day I thought until the next morning Christopher craft is German guy brilliant marketing guy banging on the door I thought oh god what have I done now? You know? And he says in quick you know Max no advice no Max No, which means work quickly. And he said you got to come downstairs you got all the models ready? I said what are you talking about? I thought we finished? No, we’ve got Asia today, which has 9 million people look at Asia today. And we’ve got the models and we’ve got the matrix name up there we can do what we want. The woman was so impressed in what you said to her she recommended you but we got to be there in an hour. I got dressed and everything went down and they I think they use it a Loreal for years as as an example of how to turn round a difficult situation situations of being something that’s going to really be what 9 million people here in the matrix name match his name and and you know see me work with the product was brilliant. And you know just holding it back to seeing as it is you know, and I think that’s

Chris Baran 1:02:51
that worked out so much better than strangling her. Oh absolutely. metaphorically as we say I want to I want to run by got some rapid fire questions I’m gonna throw you out to just kind of whatever comes to your brain click one word answers two word answers whatever. Okay, so what turns you on in the creative process? The idea what stifles it

Nicholas French 1:03:18
negative thinking they’re kind of

Chris Baran 1:03:20
an event of an event or a show and no there’s been many but the first one that comes to your mind that you was you loved it it blew you away

Nicholas French 1:03:31
alternative air show London 2013

Chris Baran 1:03:35
thing in a life that you dislike the most

Nicholas French 1:03:40
negative people

Chris Baran 1:03:42
what you love the most

Nicholas French 1:03:45
are very very positive. Great people in his inspiration inspiration proud

Chris Baran 1:03:50
moment of your life.

Nicholas French 1:03:54
I think we know her a few times

Chris Baran 1:03:57
thing that you hate the most about our industry I should put dislike hates a bad word.

Nicholas French 1:04:05
Is it? Yeah it is like really? Well as difficult I think I think influences.

Chris Baran 1:04:13
Okay, the person that you admire the most?

Nicholas French 1:04:16
Oh, that’s difficult really? I think I think Antoine of Paris in turn of the century. I can’t remember

Chris Baran 1:04:25
seeing your wishes. See?

Nicholas French 1:04:29
The tip of Waitzkin my dad went for a trial there once but I thought it was brilliant. Antoine and what’s the film hairdresser Chris so it was? Oh, gosh. Cut me on the spot here. We’re sending the question before I think of it I think of it. Yeah. The person

Chris Baran 1:04:43
that you wish you could meet.

Nicholas French 1:04:46
Wow. As a difficult one. As so many people I wish I could meet really

I can’t pass on That was so many so many people. It’s like, an I wish I could meet and they’ve gone, you know, well, if

Chris Baran 1:05:07
they were gone What who would that be? Just one that comes to your brain? I know there’s many but one that comes to your brain

Nicholas French 1:05:13
might well my dad met Rick so and I’d love to have met him.

Chris Baran 1:05:17
Yeah, that would be incredible.

Nicholas French 1:05:19
Another story about sap in the book,

Chris Baran 1:05:21
something something people don’t know about you.

Nicholas French 1:05:27
Gosh, that’s difficult isn’t that I’m difficult. I’d love to. I’m a tennis fanatic. I love to play tennis too often. I love watching it. And as my support really, I just love it. And you know, and that’s it. And I remember I got asked to come to New York to do the girls for the tennis thing and Claire with many, many years ago, and then when I got here, I played for Claire on a charity match. And they said you didn’t want to come and do that was that money wasn’t good. That was that’s my passion really had art

Chris Baran 1:06:01
a month asking, where would you go? What would you do?

Nicholas French 1:06:05
When I’m writing a book, I’m in Palm Springs at the moment. I’m writing the book and my father’s life and my life. And it’s going to be like a hopefully a coffee table book. And that’s what I’ve been doing was only to get away and get a bit of peace and quiet. And you know, and that’s that’s where I’m at the moment. We’ve been here for three weeks got another week

Chris Baran 1:06:22
thing that terrifies you.

Nicholas French 1:06:26
Failure, mediocrity, failure, mediocrity?

Chris Baran 1:06:30
Favorite curse word?

Nicholas French 1:06:34
Why not?

Chris Baran 1:06:35
Their favorite comfort food?

Nicholas French 1:06:39
Gosh, that’s this is brilliant, isn’t it? I don’t know. I love I love. I love Indian food. So yeah, just difficult to find in America. Yeah,

Chris Baran 1:06:51
something in the industry that you haven’t done that you’d want to?

Nicholas French 1:06:57
Oh, I’d love to get I’d love to get up to the top of some of these companies to show them what it’s really about, you know, the industry. I think there’s so much disinformation and whatever. It’s all very political very. And I think it needs creative people. Rather like Karl Karl Lagerfeld made Chanel popular for you with young people

Chris Baran 1:07:20
to do over something you could do over in your life, what would that be?

Nicholas French 1:07:26
I should have been more aggressive when I was in the positions I was in in companies. My should have been more aggressive to get to the top and I’d have a say, and perhaps been able to lead companies to where I think hairdressing companies should be and what they should do. Maybe there should be no.

Chris Baran 1:07:43
Tomorrow, you couldn’t do hair, or anything to do with the industry. What would you do?

Nicholas French 1:07:49
I’ll probably draw. And I’d love to be a love film. So I’d have to to SET set up to be as a set designer.

Chris Baran 1:07:59
In a sentence, if you had one wish for our industry, what would that be?

Nicholas French 1:08:04
I think it will be in a sentence. I think this industry needs to reset and grow, as it was before all the pandemics and everything else and to really, you know, so that hairdressers can be proud to be hairdressers and be really part of the creative, you know, mindset of the world. The only thing you can change in a person physically apart from plastic surgery is their hair. Even designers can’t say that. So that’s what we should be at the top of the designer process, if you will. And we’re not we’re just treated as Oh, it’s just an accessory. It’s not an accessory that comes out of your head. It’s five and it’s it’s really part of the personality. So my father always said something brilliant. And he said in consultation. If you understand the inside of a woman’s head, you have a chance of getting the outside right. Alemany said good luck after Yeah, so true, isn’t it? Chris? Yeah.

Chris Baran 1:09:06
You were talking about your dad’s a you and your and your book? Do you have any idea where when and when that’s done or if people want to book you and I know you do. You do sessions you mentor people? If somebody wanted you to? If they wanted you to mentor them for about guard or anything? Or somebody wanted to do a seminar for them, where would they go?

Nicholas French 1:09:35
They just get a hold of me on my on my web, you know, franchise and tail@aol.com which is my not the easiest way it’s not websites have it up in the scope of being x.

Chris Baran 1:09:45
f f RENCHINTL. At all oil. Yeah, okay, great.

Nicholas French 1:09:51
We’re doing a seminar down in Atlanta on November the fifth to the seventh and also we’ve got some people coming in to my studio in there. Hamptons for training as well in September, so you can always get hold of me if you can get on

Chris Baran 1:10:05
for there. And when your book is when your book is, I mean, first of all, I want a copy, I’ll pay, because I know what that goes through. But the when that book is ready, can they where can they find that? Will that be? Can they just go on that same site? Yeah, because

Nicholas French 1:10:21
it’s gonna take, I have to do a mock up than I had to fit the publishers organized to know and what comes to me

Chris Baran 1:10:26
if you want people ready for it, they can do can they just email you there? And then you’ve got okay, just to go and get they’ll get you an email list and

Nicholas French 1:10:35
Debbie is shy, they contemporaries shy they can get hold of me anywhere really? Because interest

Chris Baran 1:10:39
is far right. I’ll be tomorrow across the street. Nick, I want to thank you, my friend. It has been too long. Since we’ve, we’ve broken glass together, I guess what they might say. So I just want to say thank you for being on board. Thank you for giving your time. And more importantly, just for everything that you’ve done for our industry, I just want to say from the bottom of my heart, my friend I’ve pleasure to call you my friend. It’s a present a pleasure to call you a peer and it’s a pleasure to call you a mentor as well. So, my friend, thank you so much. Okay, thank you for the opportunity to be really Chris. It take care. Cheers. Cheers.