He’s a natural!

Press, 24 September 1988, Page 20

He’s a natural!

lan Chaney, a former panel beater with no formal hairdressing qualifications, won nine prizes at the recent South Canterbury Ladies’ Hairdressing Association competitions in Timaru. Although he still looks more like a panel beater than a hair stylist, he was immediately successful when he switched to hairdressing seven years ago. He has been a member of the Canterbury team for six of those seven years.

His immediate forte was cutting. He says if you have got the ability to watch and learn and understand, it is really just basic geometry. The rest, he admits, he has just had to pick up on the way through. And he’s been through a "Who’s Who” of Canterbury hair salons — Trimmers/Clip Joint/Ritz/Paul Davis/Mr Snips/Smile and Ruben Blades — just to name the ones he can remember. He also picked up a lot from another brilliant

ring-in, a brick layer, with whom he worked in Sydney. The brickie has also gone from strength to strength (in hairdressing) and now works with a European hairdressing champion in London. Until this year lan Chaney had only entered the cutting events because he hadn’t actually learned how to set hair. But he won the commercial evening styles sections in both Timaru and Christchurch so he starts at the top. But he says he still hasn’t learned how to do pin curls and he is not sure what trichnology is or even how to say the word ... He now has his own salon, called Pizazz. —Compiled by ROSALEEN McCARROLL.