LOS ANGELES, (LA Elements) 7/17/15 – Iconic names in beauty and style achieved their status through quality, reputation, and longevity and are an exclusive collective unto themselves. One such name is TONI&GUY, a company that has been in existence for over five decades. From Dublin to Dubai Toni&Guy salons can be found in over 40 countries worldwide. Founded by Anthony and Guy Mascolo in 1963, their brother Bruno Mascolo, CEO of the USA division, sat down for an interview prior to the Toni&Guy runway show at The Well in Los Angeles, to share his personal story and to shed some light on what it takes to achieve and maintain success in a glamorous but mercurial business.
Let’s begin at the very beginning. Before TONI&GUY.
“I was born in Italy then my father in his mid-forties immigrated our family to London to better everybody’s livelihood, which showed a lot of courage. Through telling you my story, I also tell you how I came to the culture of what we stand for as a company and what I stand for as a person.”
“While I was in Italy, I was very much a daddy’s boy. So, I used to go to my father’s shop after school. I would hang with him until he finished and then we would go home with him carrying me on his shoulders. In between clients, sometimes we would go to the coffee shop and he would have an espresso with his friends. His friends would get me to do a trick, which was to do the splits with my hands behind my back and pick up a coin with my mouth. While I did that, all of his friends would recognize me and acknowledge me with a lot of praise and a lot of positive action. Buy me cookies and ice cream. I was getting very positive attention from that.”
“However, when we moved to England, being of Latin origin, going into an Anglo-Saxon country, not being able speak the language and being young, well, young kids can sometimes be very cruel. Basically, when I was there, the attention I was getting wasn’t as positive as the one I was getting in Italy. It was more of a negative, ridicule type of attention, which was hurtful, and I didn’t want that. I just wanted to be like everybody else. What I didn’t realize at that time was because I wanted so badly to be like everybody else with all my heart, soul, mind and my whole body, it had an effect, an impact on my sub-consciousness which later on resonated in a form of becoming average. So, if say I were taking a test and there were 20 people there, I’d end up scoring between eight and twelve students. If there were 40 people there, I’d end up between 18 and 22 because I had it fixed in my sub consciousness to want to just be average and not accomplish anything. Consequently, that is one of the lessons that later on in years became a very powerful part of me to be able to teach and create the culture that helped us to accomplish what we did.”
Clockwise: Bruno Mascolo, Zak Mascolo, Guy Mascolo and Anthony Mascolo
“The next thing that happened was that when I was 13 and a half my mother died. At that point it was like somebody coming in and pulling away our foundation. Our whole world collapsed and because we were living in London, we had no other relatives there. It was just my dad and five boys. We were all completely devastated and one day, I think I was 14, I said to my dad, ‘I don’t understand why mommy had to die when she was only 45.and there’s so many people out in the world in their eighties and nineties and they’re still alive. It doesn’t seem fair to me. Why did she have to die?’ And to my astonishment he said, ‘I don’t know.’ He couldn’t give me an answer. That was the first time I realized, putting all the emphasis on how you depend on your family and your mom and dad to be able to save you from everything, that he didn’t know why and what that was all about. Consequently, I started explaining to him what I was feeling and then my two brothers, Toni and Guy, came and they started sharing what they were feeling and the feelings that we had in common was that we were grieving but we were lonely grieving. I didn’t know how they felt. They didn’t know how I was feeling or how my dad was feeling, but communicating helped us to be able to share that message. It didn’t make the grieving go away but what it did, was it made it lighter to carry. Because we were sharing it, there were all of us together grieving; it made it much better for me feeling that I wasn’t alone in it. So that was another huge lesson that I utilized as well in creating a culture later on.”
“The third thing that I experienced was a huge lesson in commitment. Being committed to what I wanted. My brothers and I had saved up some money and I was going to open up the Toni&Guy division in America. I came in 1980. I lost all that money and I had to go back to London. So I went back and they were very understanding. We saved up some more money and I came back again. This time wiser, smarter and all that good stuff and unfortunately regardless of all that wisdom that I had gained, I lost all the money and had to go back again”. “ I failed twice and my brothers were a little bit reluctant to give me any more money. But what had happened to me was that I had fallen in love with America and I decided in my own mind that I didn’t want to live in Europe anymore. I wanted to live in America and if it didn’t work I was going to pump gas but that’s where I wanted to be. So consequently, what I did. I sold my house and my car and I used my own money to come to America. The great thing that happened was that by not having something to come back to, I had no option but to keep going forward. Now I wasn’t secure in that if it didn’t work I could go back. I realized that it wasn’t that I found the wrong people, I didn’t have the right attitude to make a success because as soon as I faced any type of obstacles, instead of attacking those obstacles and overcoming them, I would rush back.”
“So, there were three very powerful things that I learned. One that I had the power that if I really believed strong enough with all my heart soul and mind that I wanted something, I could make it happen. Secondly, I couldn’t build a team unless I could share where I was going and how I was going to get there so that people could say, ‘Yeah. I want to join this team.’ Third, if I wasn’t committed then all my energy and all my efforts would be in vain because I wasn’t committed to make it happen. It was just like a job instead of a passion.”
Bruno Mascolo with Harry Styles
That’s difficult for a lot of people because we want to be safe but if you’re following your passion and launching something new, you can’t make the safe choices.
“No you can’t. So I started thinking I should have a culture that I can share with people that work with me and who feel the same way and are the right fit and have the right mindset, because if you have different people having different ideas, it’s like not having one train but having several trains wanting to go in different directions and then there’s never a spear head that keeps on going in the same direction. You can spend a lot of time and a lot of energy but you don’t move forward. So, by sharing my vision and where I wanted to go and how I wanted to do it, with people who believed in that culture, they would join the company. And because it was all single-minded ideas, anybody who wasn’t that way would almost be thrown out by their colleagues because they didn’t share that vision. So it was a lot easier to create that pivotal point so we could keep going forward.”
“But what was good is that when I explained that you have to believe in yourself, I had validated that in my heart and mind that which I had actually adapted to as a kid: I wanted to be average so I put myself in that position and I became average. “ “When I was working at communication, if somebody didn’t know what the other person is thinking it became very difficult to walk the same path. In hairdressing; if a client sits in your chair and you don’t communicate to her and you do the best hairdressing, haircut in the world, but she doesn’t feel that she’s got your attention or that you listened to what she wanted, she’s not going to walk out of that shop feeling happy. It’s the confidence that we as hairdressers give to people that’s more important than the best executed haircut. There has to be a combination of having someone look good and feel good and you’re only going to make someone feel good if you give them the attention. So that became a very strong thing that we utilized.”
There’s a certain irony that the young man who at one point, wanted to be average has been instrumental in creating this product for people who don’t want to be average at all. On the contrary, it’s for people who want to stand out.
“What I learned by wanting to be average which changed after I figured out what I had done, was that if I wanted something strong enough and I felt it with my heart, soul and mind, I could get my sub consciousness in the direction of what I wanted. That’s what I wanted when I was a kid because I was threatened by those other kids around me. But as I grew up and matured and I started reading and self-educating myself, my mindset was, I want to build a business. I want to build a culture. I want to build a vision. It wasn’t, I want to make x amount of millions. It was about building something. I wanted to create a situation where people can express themselves, feel and understand how they can conduct themselves in life and it wasn’t just teaching people how to cut it was teaching them how to be, a lifestyle.”
“You’ve got to be committed. Once you find what you’re really passionate about, the misconception of thinking, ‘I want to make money so I can retire and do whatever I want to,’ is a total misconception. Success is not about how much money you make, it’s about finding your passion and following your passion with love and commitment and everything that you have. Once you do that, you’re not working, you’re enjoying yourself and you’ve just become successful in your own right. The money will be as a gift for extra things but not necessarily what true success is. Because people have money, that doesn’t mean that they are necessarily happy or feel gratified in what they’ve accomplished.”
From left to right: Zak Mascolo, Bruno Mascolo and Anthony Mascolo
That’s true. I think about the saying, “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
“That’s exactly it but it’s true though. What I feel really privileged and happy about is that with all my experiences from life, it’s given me the understanding that that’s the real process rather than just somebody saying, ‘Oh, you do this and this is what it is.’ So being able to validate in your heart and mind on the direction that what you’re thinking is right is powerful. Now also, like a lot of kids, we live for our things to look forward to. But it’s good to look for thing to look forward to as long as you don’t live in the future and neglect the present.”
Very much so. We get so wrapped up in our work that it does become a challenge to live in the present.
“Some of these kids that come to our schools to work with us, they don’t even understand how to balance their checkbooks. So my thing isn’t just teaching them about hairdressing because that’s the easiest thing I can do. My thing is to also to teach them about life and about believing in setting goals and understanding how to create confidence in your mind. You accomplish one goal, you feel more confident. You accomplish another one, you feel even more confidant and so on. I validated that because I also like to paint so I started sketching about fifteen years ago. The first ones I did were terrible and then I bought myself a book and started training and the more I practiced, the better I became and that made me more confident. So, if I translate that into goal setting, let’s say one of these kids says, ‘Look, I want to accomplish ten haircuts and I want to buy myself a car when I do this.’ and they accomplish the first step and then the second step, they start to get self-confident. Hairdressing is about you feeling that the stylist that’s doing your hair is confident enough to make you feel good.”
Absolutely. I certainly wouldn’t want to go to a stylist who isn’t confident.
“That’s right and you could tell right away if they were or they weren’t.”
I know your father, Francesco, was a very gifted stylist and was your first teacher. Was he your only teacher?
“No. My dad put me in hairdressing and he taught me and my brother Guy taught me as well but then what they decided to do, because they were busy they sent me to a school in London for six months or nine months, I can’t recall exactly where I did the schooling and it was like doing two or three years of an apprenticeship in nine months and then they polished me up after that. It was the Morris School of Hairdressing.”
What sets the TONI&GUY academies apart from other hairdressing schools?
“What sets us apart is that we just introduced a new method of teaching and each one of these kids learns this method, which is thirteen new styles. They will be able to satisfy between seven out of ten clients that sit in their chair from the moment that they start cutting. Hairdressing is about confidence but it’s also about learning what is achieved by a specific technique and the combination of one length haircutting, layering and graduation. Once they’re and be able to put them all together, the students will be able to create all the hairstyles that you see around.”
“Zack was able to create those techniques in thirteen haircuts that describe the majority of hairstyles that can be interpreted in each client that comes into the salon. Therefore, we feel that we are always consistently advanced. We just don’t do hairdressing as we used to do it even though we were well known twenty years ago, we still believe that today’s hairdressing is different than it was then. So Zach adds the new modern adaptation to it, re-created our basic styles which gives us the edge of being able to be up to date with what’s happening now and making sure that we teach what is really important for them to be able to build a clientele and not just to pass their tests.”
Editor’s note: Zack Mascolo is the Creative Director of the Americas for TONI&GUY
About your salons, there are some in Orange County. Is that correct?
“That is correct. The biggest base of salons is in Dallas Texas. That’s where we were before we moved here.”
Bruno Mascolo
Is that the TONI&GUY USA headquarters?
“Yes. We haven’t decided to open any salons here apart from the ones we already had because we want to open in town, LA and we’re not ready to do that yet because running a business you have to be smart and not just do this because you’re doing well. You need controlled growth and you need to do it the right way, teach the right thing. You know there’s probably 1500 to 2000 families depending on my decisions. If I make a decision and it’s too quick too premature, it could affect all these people’s lives and I’m very conscientious about all of the responsibility that’s given to me about all of these young people’s livelihoods. So I want to make sure that we do it step by step.”
“The salon division that we have in Dallas we haven’t interpreted it here yet because our vision was to eventually create the mechanism where we would win and our people would win in the form of franchising. So our vision is to franchise where we participate in education and we give some of these kids the opportunities. If they don’t have the money, people with money that come and want to do a franchise have to link up with one of our stylists or it’s not a deal.”
What has been your role in the TIGI products?
“Well, I was the CEO and my wife, Kyara, was the creative genius behind it. She was the marketing director and the creator of the product. We built that from hardly anything in 1987 and we sold TIGI to Unilever in 2009 for $400,000,000. It was a really great journey and she’s fabulous. But then the month I sold it, the next month my brother Guy died. I was in this darkness and thinking, ‘What the hell am I doing? Why am I even doing this?’ This really made me grieve until probably about six months ago. Because my brother wasn’t only my brother, he was my best friend and he gave me the biggest gift I’ve ever had in my life. He trusted me implicitly. He would never question my decisions. He just trusted me ‘whatever you do I want to do with you.’ To have that, there’s nothing better than to feel that somebody has so much trust in you. So when he went, I have to be honest with you, at first I had to show strength, but at the same time inside, I was dying and I was really sad. It took me a long time to overcome that grieving. I lost focus, I had some things that I wasn’t paying attention to, which we are now going through the task of re-structuring and re-organizing and it feels great to really reposition everything in place with a clear direction.”
I am so sorry for the loss of Guy.
“Yes. Zach is Guy’s son so I felt an obligation that I wanted to make sure that I teach Zach everything that I know because Guy’s not here so I feel I need to do that.” Well it’s beautiful everything that has resulted at this point. You have these students who are going to have a chance at a wonderful career. “The other thing that we have is we don’t just teach people to go into the salon. A lot of these kids don’t even go into the salon sometimes. They go straight to fashion work and to fashion shows. Others go into television or films and do hair in films. Others go into education and teach. There are different avenues that we create for them. Different paths. We want to teach them everything that’s available to them. I think that’s where we come in as different. It’s not about us it’s about them and that’s what I keep on saying. We’re a team and we have to educate the youth to be able to keep on upgrading our industry. If we teach them that and we do it by example, they’re going to pass it forward. If they pass it forward, wouldn’t it make our industry much much stronger?”
All photos courtesy of TONI&GUY
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