Hairbond Earned Its Place in the Trade
From British Master Barbers Live to Worcester, London, Leeds and Los Angeles, Hairbond built its reputation by backing real professionals and doing the work.
Hairbond did not build its name from behind a laptop.
We built it in barbershops.
At trade shows.
On stages.
During shoots.
In rooms full of people who knew the difference between a good product and an expensive tub with a famous face attached.
Barbering was changing.
The trade was becoming more confident. Barbers were building stronger businesses, developing their own identities and stepping out from the shadow of the wider hair industry.
Hairbond was there.
Not watching from the edge.
Not adding the word professional to a brochure and hoping nobody checked.
We were part of it.
British Master Barbers Live
In 2015, Hairbond sponsored British Master Barbers Live.
It was a proper trade event.
A packed audience.
Live demonstrations.
Working barbers and hairdressers sharing their knowledge with people who had travelled to learn.
Nobody was cutting hair for a twelve second video.
Nobody was pointing at words floating above their head.
There was work to be done.
The Hairbond artistic team took to the stage, demonstrated techniques and showed what our products could do in professional hands.
Gareth Clark led technical education for the brand.
Lyndy brought experience and presence.
Jamie from Just Gents and other members of the team played their part throughout the event.
The products mattered.
The professionals made them matter.
Hairbond went on the road
We did not attend one show, take a photograph and call it a movement.
Hairbond went on tour with Barber Connect.
We organised professional shoots in Worcester and London.
We brought people together at a Hairbond meet-up in Leeds.
Each stop helped build something.
Relationships.
Confidence.
Creative work.
A stronger connection between Hairbond and the people using the products behind the chair.
We gave working professionals a platform.
They gave Hairbond credibility.
That was the deal.
No twelve page ambassador agreement.
No compulsory photograph holding a jar next to a rented steering wheel.
Just good people doing good work.
Worcester, London and Leeds
The shoots were not created to make Hairbond look busy.
They created something real.
Barbers came together.
Techniques were shared.
Strong images were produced.
The products were tested and styled in the hands of people who understood them.
Worcester had its own character.
London brought a different energy.
Leeds gave us the chance to bring the Hairbond community together in person.
These were not anonymous content factories.
The people mattered.
The place mattered.
The work mattered.
Hairbond was not borrowing credibility from the trade.
We were investing in it.
From Britain to Long Beach
The journey eventually took us across the Atlantic.
We took barber Chris Moon to Los Angeles to represent Hairbond at a hair show in Long Beach.
For an independent British brand, that meant something.
We were not sitting in Britain with the word global underneath the logo.
We put a British barber on a plane and took British barbering into an American trade show.
No filters.
No rented Lamborghini.
Just skill, product and a very long flight.
Chris represented Hairbond in front of an international audience.
Hairbond represented the quality and character of the British trade.
British barbering travelled well.
So did Hairbond.
The Hairbond dolls
We even created miniature figures of members of the Hairbond artistic team.
The dolls featured Gareth Clark, Geordie Barber, Barbertown Worcester and Lyndy.
They came complete with their own clothes, hairstyles and barbering tools.
They were displayed at The Cutting Room in Lancaster.
They were strange.
They were brilliant.
They also said more about Hairbond than another photograph of a moody model staring at a concrete wall.
These were real people from the trade.
People knew them.
People respected them.
A corporate brand might have held six meetings to decide whether the dolls fitted its brand guidelines.
We made the dolls.
The world continued turning.
What the work built
These events were not created for a company archive.
They built relationships with respected professionals across Britain.
They put working barbers and hairdressers on stages, into shoots and in front of new audiences.
They took Hairbond from Worcester, London and Leeds to Los Angeles and Long Beach.
They also gave the brand something no marketing agency could manufacture.
Trust inside the trade.
Barbers saw the products being used by people they respected.
Salon owners met the people behind the brand.
Educators carried Hairbond into their professional work.
Customers discovered the products through recommendations made across the chair.
That reputation was not created overnight.
It travelled from barber to barber.
From salon to salon.
From chair to chair.
Respect cannot be printed on a label
Hairbond became well respected within the professional trade because we put the work in.
We sponsored events.
We supported educators.
We organised shoots.
We travelled with barbers.
We created opportunities.
We stood alongside the trade before barbering became fashionable to every marketing department with a plastic tub and an Instagram password.
Respect cannot be bought with followers.
It cannot be borrowed from a celebrity.
It cannot be added to the packaging in silver foil.
It is earned when professionals trust the product and the people behind it.
That takes years.
It should.
The barber was always the hero
Looking back at these photographs, one thing is clear.
Hairbond was never the main character.
The heroes were the professionals doing the work.
The barber taking a risk onstage.
The salon owner travelling across the country to learn.
The young hairdresser watching from the audience and thinking, I could do that.
The people who used the products, recommended them and carried the Hairbond name into their shops.
Hairbond supplied the tools.
The trade supplied the talent.
That is how it should be.
The trade has changed
The cameras are better now.
The videos are shorter.
Everyone has become a personal brand, including a few people who appear to have been cutting hair since last Thursday.
But the fundamentals have not changed.
Skill matters.
Education matters.
Character matters.
Turning up matters.
The best professionals rarely need to announce that they are professionals.
You can see it in their work.
Perhaps it is time to build again
Looking through these photographs has reminded us what made the Hairbond artistic team work.
It was not the job titles.
It was not the matching shirts.
It was the people.
Talented professionals who cared about better products, better education and a stronger trade.
Hairbond is entering a new chapter.
New products are coming.
Fresh creative work is taking shape.
The brand is moving forward.
Perhaps the next step is to bring a new group of professionals together.
Not to recreate the old team.
The past has already done its job.
The next team would need a sharper purpose.
Working barbers and hairdressers.
Real education.
Strong creative work.
Proper trade experience.
Good people.
No empty ambassador titles.
No follower auditions.
No collecting people because they own scissors and a ring light.
We are not announcing anything yet.
But Hairbond built one respected professional team before.
Perhaps it is time to do it again.
Discover Hairbond at hairbond.com
Professional partners can order at partners.hairbond.com