Top New Zealand stylist Danny Pato talks to Virginia Larson about desperate hair-days and leaving Covid-19 lockdown.
Hairdresser Danny Pato loves dressing up. One of the joys of the job, he says, is being able to turn up to work in a bowler hat or a baseball cap – or like now, a black trench coat over trousers tucked into long socks in a dashing update on knickerbockers.
One accessory he never imagined wearing at his Ponsonby hair salon, however, was a hospital-blue, elasticised face mask. But protocols at salons under Covid-19 alert level 2 were strict: clients had to be separated, numbers limited, and track and trace records kept. The close contact of stylist and client also called for masks and industrial quantities of sanitiser for the regular cleaning of seats, bench-tops, basins and tools, and there was no complimentary coffee or wine, while magazines were BYO.
Desperate hair-days towards the end of the country’s two-month lockdown did lead to some regrettable home-dyes. Hairdressers were overwhelmed with bookings and walk-ins as level 2 ticked over in May. A few barbers who announced they were opening just after midnight, for a bit of fun, arrived to find queues of the wild-haired and shaggy-bearded forming outside their doors.
This team is family; hairdressing is a very mobile industry, but more than half our staff have been with us for 10 or so years. In those first two weeks of lockdown I was calling staff daily. As a business owner my first priority was about looking after our people, financially and emotionally. We were able to top up the government wage subsidy to 80 percent for the first four weeks and keep everyone on. Our landlord helped out with the salon lease. Then we had to start re-booking clients, really, I didn’t slow down until the last week or so of level 3.
When we visit, Danny and his business partner are running their 12 stylists in two separate teams so every second client station can remain empty to maintain social distancing. The two teams are working two days on and two days off over seven days; long shifts, with the salon booked solid for eight weeks.
Masks and sanitiser aside, D+M Hair Design quickly recaptured its cheerful buzz while following health department rules to the letter. Well, not exactly to the letter. D+M’s online health and safety message to clients had touches of Danny’s sass and humour: “We’ve missed you, but sorry, no hugs, kisses and handshakes.” And fair to say, between the “be clean” and “be cashless” instructions, the government’s guidelines for salons did not demand: “Be honest. If you’ve succumbed to colouring your own hair during lockdown, please let us know…so we can make sure we allocate you enough time to correct any mishaps.”
Danny spends precious little time in low-gear. As well as being co-owner and a full-time stylist at D+M, he enters hairdressing competitions, runs seminars, trains stylists, writes industry commentary for media, and organises charity projects. Trophies line the reception desk at the salon, among them four graces, golden arms outstretched, represent consecutive New Zealand Hairdresser of the Year titles won at the Australasian Hair Expo Awards from 2016. On the salon walls are large framed photographs of his award-winning 2018 Mélange collection – a tribute to strong, proud women of the world, with a nod to the #MeToo movement and, closer to home, the five sisters he grew up with in his sprawling Greek family. The portraits are works of art, with Danny’s creativity woven into every facet, from fabrics and jewellery to makeup and the hair, of course.
Most recently, he won the Best Video award at the 2019 AIPP (Association Internationale Press Professionnelle Coiffure) Awards in London. Last January he was a finalist in the 2020 International Hairdressing Awards in Madrid.
The events Danny had planned for the rest of 2020 have been cancelled or postponed. That includes the big international competitions and, at home, New Zealand Fashion Week and Auckland University of Technology’s Fashion Design School Rookie Show that he’s thrown himself into for the past three years, complementing the students’ youthful inventiveness with dazzling hair creations – bobbles and bows, sleek shingles, shots of shimmery blue fabric-frosting, hair-clips in fan formation above the forehead.
Even during the quiet, tail-end of lockdown, Danny volunteered to take a tutorial for a Facebook Live-streamed hairdressing seminar, organised by two Australian colleagues. Close to 4,000 people from all over the world tuned into sessions over the week-long event. The sitting-room of Danny’s elegant villa became his stage. “I set my mannequin stand on a table. My partner videoed the session on my iPhone and viewers fired questions at me while I worked. I made some wonderful new contacts, exchanged cheeky emails…”
It’s often said hairdressers provide two services – a haircut and therapy. Having got his staff through the worst of the Covid-19 lockdown, Danny knows his listening and counselling skills will be in demand as clients return, some having lost jobs or struggling to keep their own businesses afloat.
“One of my first clients when we reopened at level 2 was an Air New Zealand employee who’d just lost his job. I wanted to hug him, but couldn’t.
“It’s a sad, difficult time for many. Hairdressers will be lucky if this a ‘lipstick recession’ like the GFC, when people put off buying big-ticket items but kept their hair and beauty appointments. For me, one good thing that came out of lockdown was it gave me time to rethink things, appreciate relationships and consider how much we all depend upon each other. Simply, we’re better together.”
