FOLIO
Folio Weekly: How did you get started doing hair?
Anthony LaRoche: My father was a hairdresser. That’s basically how I started. He has two salons in Ft. Lauderdale. So [with my son] we’re third-generation now. I think I was about 9 or 10 helping my father out during my summer vacations and I liked it.
How did you end up going from a hairdresser to a salon owner?
I went to work [cutting hair] after I went to hair school in Miami in department stores in Richmond, Savannah, then Columbia, South Carolina. And at each of those places I’d go to
trade shows and there were contests about who
were the better hairdressers. I noticed there was
one person who continued to win everything, and
that person was from Jacksonville. So eventually I called him on the phone and interviewed; he gave me a job and eventually sold me his salon.
How many salons have you owned?
I’ve had about 13 salons [in Jacksonville] and one in Miami also, so that would make it about 14. It’s been over 50 years.
What happened to them?
I sold some of them to people who’ve worked for me.
Do you remember your first?
My first salon in Jacksonville was on Edgewood Avenue South, and it was owned by the person who I came up here to work for, and he sold that to me, and I think I might have been 29 or 30 years old.
Where have most of your businesses been?
All over Jacksonville. I’ve had salons at the beach, one in 5 Points, Murray Hill, Ponte Vedra, Avondale.
Is there a discernible difference between customers in each part of town?
Yes. We had one salon near Ponte Vedra that was quite upscale. We did a lot of women from Ortega at our [Roosevelt Mall] salon; however, that was a lot more democratic because of the location, which was very nice, we liked the diversity of it. My first salon, being on Edgewood Avenue South, was pretty much a working group of people and a lot of Navy people, which was wonderful, they were terrific.
Do you recall when you first cut a person’s hair?
Yeah, I was 22 at the time. There was a lot of anxiety at that time. The training wasn’t nearly as good in the earlier days in our industry. It’s continued to improve, and it’s much better now than it was then.
How long did it take for that anxiety to go away?
Probably about a year or two. I think that’s still pretty typical among our young staff members, it takes a year and a half or so even with the good training they get.
What kind of training did you get initially?
Basic training at the school I went to, but I don’t think at that time the instructors were as talented as they are now, so it’s more difficult for us to learn. We actually learned more when we went out and got our first job. And in my case, every time I thought I could do better in terms of learning, I went out and went to work for whoever that might have been.
What if your 22-year-old self had access to the training they have today?
It would have been wonderful. One of the things we do is go to hair shows, which was expensive, and there were usually 500 or 1,000 people there. Now there are 10,000 people probably, and you really can’t see very much if you’re standing in the back of that crowd. So now we have videotapes, CDs, so the learning is a lot simpler and you can replay it 25 times, and also in the new schools they play videos while they’re cutting so they get a chance to see what they’re supposed to be doing.
Is this something you can do without training?
No. There’s a lot of training and a lot of state laws. You have to go I think in Florida to school for 1,200 hours, and that’s just scratching the surface of what you learn.
What’s been the biggest change you’ve seen since you started doing hair in the ’60s?
When I first started doing hair, we only colored hair in private rooms because no one wanted to admit they were having their hair colored at the time. It was not really considered a good thing to color your hair.
What changed?
Public attitude changed. Color now is sort of an accessory. You look at the violet hair, purple hair, a variety of different things. So color has become a fashion accessory now, where at that time it was to cover up your gray hair.
What do you look for when hiring a new hairdresser?
I’m looking for someone with great people skills, someone motivated, fashion-conscious. In my case I have young assistants and I usually keep them nine months or so before we put them on the floor and taking clients.
What should young hairdressers expect at their first job?
There’s a lot of intangible things to learn by working at a salon, and I’d be pressed to even tell you [specifically] what they’d be, but there’s a way that things work and run, the things they have no idea about being in school, and they you get to a salon there are a lot of very subtle circumstances in the way you treat clients and what you say and what you do. Those are the things they assimilate in the first nine months or a year.
How long does it realistically take hairdressers before they can make a living?
We’ve found that for a really very smart young lady or man, to really get to a comfortable place for them, it takes about three years after they get out of school. I’m not saying they don’t do well, but to get to a financial place and have enough clients because of their work, it takes between two or three years.
Are the vast majority of hairdressers still female?
I think that’s still true. I really wouldn’t know [the ratio], but I’d say one male in 50 people.
How do hairstylists justify their rates?
It’s usually a matter of experience. You normally wind up charging more as your client base increases, which I think is probably true in almost anything. When you have more clients you’re probably doing something right. That justifies their prices.
Hairdressing is a reputation thing?
Yes, it is. You can advertise and do a lot of other stuff, which is nice. But ultimately it’s what the person whose hair you just did says about it to someone else.
As a hairdresser, have you ever been stunned by any hair advances?
I think we were all stunned when Vidal Sassoon came along because we were all setting hair on rollers. There was no such thing as blow-drying hair until Vidal Sassoon came and started cutting hair and doing very precise haircuts. The industry changed at that moment. Seismic change.
“When I first started doing hair, we only colored hair in private rooms because no one wanted to admit they were having their hair colored.”
The JAG-OFF
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