CPD at West Suffolk College

Last year I was fortunate to meet a fantastic and enthusiastic group of college educators from Bury St Edmunds. You may recall me writing about a reunion with an old college educator of mine, in the early days of my career. Well I was delighted to be invited back, this time to work with salon based assessors for the college in a Professional Development Day.

Senior work based learning co-ordinator Tricia Williams organised and arranged for my re-visit and it was so lovely to see her and other members of staff. She had arranged two gorgeous models for me to work with, both fully briefed that this was a day to be creative and inspire the participants as well as offer commercial looks ready to take back to the salons and start promoting the latest trends.

I worked with our new Autumn/Winter collection to entice the group as I introduced myself and the new collection. There were 19 participants in total, all geared up for an exciting day starting with a morning of advanced cut and colour demonstrations, followed by a workshop in the afternoon. It was a pleasure to be working back in the modern and well groomed salon the college has to offer and the staff made my visit effortless.... it felt more like having fun than work it was brilliant!

Tricia who has bags of experience took the role of my assistant and helped prep and tone when needed making the day run smoothly and on time. Huge thanks Tricia x I loved teaching the Spring/Summer collection as it was a great chance for me to put my own style into my work and I am already starting to bubble over with ideas for the Autumn/Winter trends! It is such an exciting time for both educators and participants as it will stretch your mind and creativity and open up endless possibilities.

I would like to thank everyone involved in organising these visits from the London office team to the college staff and all the models for being fabulous to work with.

Mario x

Simply Saks

For many new stylists joining our Saks network you’ll soon realise we are a great family company that prides itself on excellence!
So if you’ve just joined you’ll no doubt be visiting your nearest Academy to be taught Simply Saks.

Simply Saks is a classic cutting course, designed to teach the core foundation of hairdressing and keep high standards consistent across our network. You can expect to learn about the company’s philosophies and history and you’ll certainly walk away from it feeling that you have extended and refreshed your skills and knowledge.

I absolutely love teaching this course, and after nearly 10 years in the industry it has kept me well grounded in my approach to both client communication/consultation and how I cut hair.

Testimonies:

'This is an excellent refresher course having not been in a salon environment for 20 years! I felt challenged and the encouragement I received has certainly given me the confidence in my abilities to return to hairdressing at a professional level. Educator and facilities exceeded my expectations. Thank you :)'

Tracey Moore – External delegate


'Really enjoyed my week feel like I have learnt a lot. The training is very thorough!!'

Nicola Fox – Saks Welling Garden City


'The training has given me a good grounding to help me confidently progress with my skills and has given me confidence in my basics to move forward with more creative work'

Katie Sprules – External


'This week I learnt point cutting and I have improved as the week has gone on. The educator was friendly and very good at explaining and helping out where you’re going wrong. I have built up a lot of confidence this week. Thank you!'

Vikki Skivington – Saks Kings Hill

Autumn/Winter trends Darlington

It only seems like yesterday the Saks Art Team were launching the Spring/Summer trends. And with Autumn/Winter upon us, the new mood boards are ready and we have started our Up Close and Personal seminars to share with everyone the latest fashion trends, which is inspiring our hairdressing.

The mood board has 4 sections to work from, Shape me, Colour me, Cut me and Style me. There is everything from tight head hugging shapes to extreme hat hair from the 80’s, contrasting colours to expensive jewelled tones, to name only a few!

For those of you who have been on courses at our Academies will know the structure to this innovative way of inspiring creativity and challenging your talent and skill.

I travelled up to Darlington at the start of August to meet Tracey, Alison and Lynn who had arrived a day earlier preparing the models. As soon as I arrived and saw the girls we would be working with, it was the usual “best of the bunch” as the girls were all gorgeous! I got straight to work with my models thinking about the looks I would be working with and how best to go about creating it. I worked the 80’s inspired Hat hair and 1940’s style. I had a fantastic time working on both these looks and hope to share more ideas with you on future courses.

The show day is always busy and it’s a juggling act of rehearsals, final prep, makeup and wardrobe. Everyone has a great energy about them and I always get really excited in the build up before getting on stage. The audience were all very welcoming and it was brilliant to be asked questions after the show about my looks and how everyone enjoyed it. The feedback was excellent and it’s a great feeling to know you’ve done a good job.

It is great working with the team, and I had the added bonus of being on stage with Lynn for the first time. They are all great to be around and always full of encouragement and helpful tips. I have enjoyed the new approach to teaching with the mood boards and definitely think it’s the way forward.

Final thanks – to everyone in Darlington for your help and support

Mario :)

Award Winners shoot!

It’s been another busy week in the life of me. Firstly the photo shoot for the Saks Award winners from 2008. Congrats again too...
- Stacy Cook – Dundee
- Roy Rogers – Edinburgh
- Carina Lowen – Harrogate
- Greg Bloor – Birmingham
- Leanne King – Altrincham
- Amy Curran – Altrincham
- Abbie Savva – Great Yarmouth
- Jade Dyble – Great Yarmouth
- Craig Jenkins – Southend
- Abbey Trent – Guildford
- Ben Waines – Southampton

The final images from this shoot will be shown on the Autumn/Winters trends posters that will come to all your salons in August.

After researching/looking through the autumn/winter catwalk shows, Tracey and myself pick out the trends. This is used as a prep day, to work on any colouring/cutting/finishing that may need to be prepared. The next day is the shoot, we all went off to a beautiful new studio in Covent Garden, full of light and slouchy humongous bean bags, where the team also chilled out in between shooting there looks.

It was a really busy day that worked like a well oiled machine and the A/W’s have created 7 great looks.


India comes for a visit

Also we had a group into the Academy from India. They booked on the trends cutting and colouring course which runs for 3 days. It was as intense learning, with loads of enthusiasm + even more questions + they left feeling full of new knowledge clutching all their training heads telling me how they are taking them home as hand luggage!!! …

Alison :)