The Long Lunch … At Night

This issue gave our industry editor the chance to see the NZARH Supreme Hairdresser of the Year in her own habitat – Tauranga. It took Gene Cooksley back into familiar territory, but the real question was, given the trend so far, what time would this interview end?

The answer, as it turned out, was the wee hours of the morning. This was despite the fact our interviewee had to get up for an equestrian event the next day. They make them a bit more hard-core beyond the Bombays.

Liz Ward was born and bred in Katikati – just outside Tauranga central – a farming and orchard town of around 6000. She grew up on a dairy farm and started her hairdressing career at The Hair Shop. After finishing her apprenticeship and working for a few other local shops, she took off to Australia for six months. It was about more than getting hairdressing experience. “I also travelled 37000km in a Valiant station wagon. The wheels fell off in the middle of the desert, I was stuck in the desert for five hours and washing clothes and undies at the service stations …”

Now, Ward is on to owning her fifth salon and she’s often booked up six weeks in advance.

And just as an aside – before we get into the interview proper – we weren’t joking about the equestrian event. Ward has stuck with her interest in horses and rides side-saddle in a custom-built saddle that’s more than 100 years old. It’s an official event and she competes wearing a top hat, veil, full skirt and jacket. Picture that next time you bump into her on the street.

GC: You are now officially the best hairdresser in the country and not only once but twice – do you view it as that?

LW: No I think it is a fantastic accolade and it was amazing to win it over all my peers but competition work is still quite a lot different to day to day work so there are still a lot of really good hairdressers out there that don’t fit

GC: So how long have you had your current shop?

LW: Two and a half years. It’s good. I spent a lot of time training a lot of people for everyone else.

GC: What do you mean working in other people’s shops?

LW: No, just training apprentices to a really good level and getting them out there and then losing them and it’s like you’re doing it for everyone else. I thought ‘this isn’t really balanced at all’.

GC: So you’re the same as me – going a little bit anti-rock star thing.

LW: Yeah and I don’t really want apprentices any more. I probably will have at least one but it’s about getting the balance right. Across the road from me are schools and it’s about spending more time with the kids and me and that sort of stuff.

GC: So, with your other shops, what were the names of those, what size were they and what did you get up to, and whereabouts were they?

LW: They were pretty big. I started with Haircraft, which is a big name, although that’s something I didn’t realise when I bought it. So I had it in Katitkati and one in Waihi, which I sold. I kept the one in Katikati open and then I had another Haircraft with a huge staff of about 15 or 18 up to 22

GC: And were you making a dollar out of that or was it just a drama?

LW: It was a bit of a drama actually, because there were so many staff and I was so involved with being on Wella’s artistic team. And I was judging, and I had some kids and the husband left. Then it all just turned to custard so I decided to downscale.

GC: How do the other seven salons in town deal with the wins you pick up ?

LW: Well they don’t, they hate me. I’m Kataikati’s golden girl, which is all very nice but there is a bit of “you’re not going to put up your prices are you? Because I’ve been a client for so many years”. If I’d been in Auckland I would have doubled my prices.

GC: Where else have you worked? Did you do the classic thing and run away to work?

LW: Yeah, did the classic and ran away to Australia and did that sort of thing and worked in quite a few salons. But I decided to come back from Australia and open my own salon and then I started in competitions.

GC: I’ve heard you are incredibly competitive.

LW: Yeah, I’d like to think I’m a really good loser though.

GC: Does it happen often?

LW: Only when I first started judging. I went to Hamilton to the competitions where there were 11 events and I did all 11 and I got second to last and last in every single event. Raymond told me … he said ‘Liz it was all fucking horrible’. I asked him and he said do you want me to tell you honestly, I said yes please and he just said it was all just really, really terrible. I was trying to do the creative thing and the commercial thing and it was just blimmin’ horrible nothing. And he was absolutely right.

GC: So he inspired you rather than just crushing you?

LW: Yeah absolutely, and David Shields is another one for being honest about work.

GC: Don’t you think that the guys at that level, who you must come across, are just about fashion?

LW: I was just a trainee judge and I thought ‘that’s it I’m never going to be a judge, I’m never going to be anything’. Raymond was my idol, he was fantastic.

GC: Yeah he’s a pretty consistent man isn’t he? I think there are a whole lot of young ones who don’t realise what the man’s done for them in the industry and how passionate he’s been.

LW: Yes he is a really incredible man and I appreciated his feedback. You can’t move forward unless you get constructive criticism like that.

GC: What was your opinion of hairdressers or your friend’s opinion of hairdressers when you were at school? Was it a good thing to go into or was it all about pushing a pram? Was it thought of as a career?

LW: Hairdressing was something you did when you weren’t smart enough to get into the bank. All the good girls got bank jobs or they left and went nursing or went to Uni. But I started hairdressing because I was riding for the New Zealand team and Mum said ‘get a job’, basically to help pay for it. I was only in the fourth form so I cruised downtown and went to 4square and went to this and that and walked into the salon and asked about hairdressing. And they said ‘oh OK come back later and we’ll see about getting you an apprenticeship and leaving school’.

GC: So what did your parents say? Were they alright with it?

LW: I think Mum realised that I was pretty passionate about most things I did and I was very lucky growing up because Mum always said that there is no such word as can’t, just get into it and do it really well.

GC: So they obviously lived local. What were they doing for a living?

LW: I came off a dairy farm.

GC: So marrying a farmer would have been the first choice for your Dad?

LW: Every cross country course that I walked as a kid Mum would go ‘I wonder if they’ve got a son, this is a beautiful property’ and I’d go ‘OMG Mum don’t even say that out loud’.

GC: So you are not keen on having a ton of staff, do you think that’s because its different from when you started?

LW: No I just think my priorities have changed and I’m still passionate about training and I’m still passionate about the industry and I think sometimes your priorities get a little bit out of line. I was spending more time thinking about my apprentices achieving their units and building their reputation and their name and I was sort of tagging on the back going ‘I’ll just pick up the ideas that are left and run with that’.

GC: Have you noticed the difference in HITO now that it's gathered momentum?

LW: That’s a pretty big subject Gene. For a while there the private providers who were GOD and there was a lot of ‘look honey there’s $10,000 go and get yourself a hairdressing course”.

GC: In Paris, New York or London you sweep the floors for six weeks …

LW: Mmm and you’ll like it, smile and then get me lunch.

One of the questions I ask my staff is “do you drink”. Facebook’s good too, you can find out all sorts of things. A classic example: I had a girl the other day who wanted to do work experience and I said ‘Yeh that’s absolutely fine’ and I said Thursday is a really good day and she said OK. And she rang and said she couldn’t make Thursday, is Friday OK and I said ‘Yes’. So we looked on Facebook to see what’s happening and she had been asked to go to the beach and said she would change work arrangements. She was trying to suck up to me so she had joined me as a friend. So I rang her and told her I had been on facebook and seen her plans.

GC: I did hear someone say (at the hair awards) ‘I wonder how long Liz Ward can party after the competition?’. How long did you last?

LW: Oh about 5.15am.

GC: How well were you?

LW: Not too bad. Molly was clutching a little white bag on the plane for a wee while. But it was good. Molly was actually saying at the end of the night ‘Elizabeth, Elizabeth’ and I was saying ‘just one more’.

GC: Did you make any new friends?

LW: Only some enemies. No actually met a lovely chap who wanted to marry me and obviously I wasn’t so keen and he got thrown out of the pub about three times but he kept coming back.

GC: Just shows you how alluring you were.

LW: No I think he was on much better stuff than I was, so he kept coming back and Molly told him to get lost quite politely a few times.

GC: What made you buy Haircraft? Was it a going concern?

LW: Yes it was and I actually paid at the time $22,000.

GC: Would you ever do that again?

LW: No. I paid quite a lot of money especially for ’91, that was huge. I borrowed 100 per cent.

GC: Did you have any working capital or did you just borrow enough to buy it?

LW: Yes I only borrowed enough to buy it and just hoped. And Mum guaranteed it and she said ‘you will be living at that salon out the back because if I lose this house you are fully in the shit’. And so I did and that was pretty cool. That’s part of the reason I started competition work because I needed something to make me separate from the other businesses in Katikati.

GC: So was it about marketing?

LW: Yes success was the best revenge sort of policy. And I must admit every time I held a trophy I was thankful.

GC: So does that mean that everything you have done as far as the business side of it and the competition side of things has been pretty much finding out as you go?

LW: Yeh very much so. There were people on when I started like Grant Bettjeman and Lindsay Loveridge and Raymond and David and Lynette Karam-Walley that said ‘Look we think you’d be very good and come on board and we’d like to you to be a judge and you would be a good assessor’, so I did that.

GC: And this is before you had won anything?

LW: Pretty much and just started competing – well I had to sort of win some stuff before I could be a judge. But it was a pretty big learning curve. I just winged it really, quite a lot and probably still do a little bit

GC: Do you think it is an advantage or disadvantage being from a smaller community, a town rather than a city?

LW: I think opportunity-wise I would feel gutted because I’m not on the spot, but to me it’s not about location it’s about who you are, and that’s a choice.

GC: Have you ever considered moving to Auckland or Wellington or back to Australia?

LW: No, because I can’t fit my horse in town, plus my dog and my cat.

GC: But when you find people who’ve got a balance or they live in a lovely area rather than running on a treadmill trying to keep their name out there it’s a really lovely thing to see.

LW: I quite often ring David on his way home from work and he says ‘what are you doing?’, and I say I’m standing outside watering my topiaries. Then I ask what he’s doing and he’s stuck in traffic. So I like the balance.

GC: … so about your modeling career …

LW: It was very short, like Twiggy.

GC: Can I use the term glamour model or are we talking fashion?

LW: No I was a catwalk model when there was lots of big hair going on. A cloud of hairspray out the back and a cask of wine in the front of your station, add a dress and we were good to go.

GC: As an area is there a strong quality in the local industry?

LW: Oh yes. We have Jason Davies in the Bay, we have got a lot of really good hairdressers around and the thing about Katikati is that people don’t really care what their hair looks like when they go and pick kiwifruit. So we are not stuck in the mould. I think we can be a little more experimental, I think we can be a little bit more creative with our work and I think people are a little more open to being different.

GC: In an area like this when you get a clientele do you get the family? If you lose one is there a risk of losing the lot.

LW: Yes you do and it’s quite good now because you hear that. ‘Liz does my hair now and I’ve heard she’s so incredibly expensive. Do you know she has a closed client list?’

GC: Wicked well done because I was talking to Paul from Frog and we were saying there are so many well trained people now and if someone has a closed book it’s a big, big deal.

LW: Yeah. I’m not there yet but I’m probably booked up six weeks ahead and all my clients just rebook because they know if they don’t they won’t get in and they miss out.

GC: Another comment I hear is that you will wear anything as long as it’s black.

LW: Black is such a flattering colour, I think. I have a little double life thing going on – what I do in the weekend is quite different to work. Tomorrow I will be in a top hat with a veil with a woollen jacket, waistcoat, jodhpurs, the full skirt, long black boots and on a horse.

GC: What was bigger for you when winning the supreme awar – the cutting or the styling?

LW: I think the cutting because I’m probably most known for my styling so winning it for the cutting was pretty cool. I was really happy with it and when you are doing competition work you’ve got to be able to leave the floor and feel very proud of your work. It doesn’t always go to plan so it was nice to have something go to plan and everyone got it.