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A night to remember - The Sapphires 2010
Date Added: 2010-06-16
Salon Business Online’s new content producer, Katie Innes gives you the lowdown on her night at The Sapphires 2010.
When you have a ticket to a lavish award ceremony celebrating a unique part of our industry, and held at the world-famous Dorchester Hotel, I think it’s OK to feel a little nervous. However, an hour before the event – even though I couldn’t have been more prepared - donned to the nines in a shimmering, sapphire blue dress with shiny, new highlighted hair (courtesy of Mayfair salon, Webster Whiteman), I realised I was shaking.
Just new to the industry, I was about to attend an event that would be filled to the brim with the most important names in British hairdressing – and I was terrified about coming face-to-face with some of my idols.
However, on arrival at the ultimately decadent hotel, standing with a glass of wine in hand – with John Frieda to my right and Lee Stafford to my left - the buzz and warmth of the hairdressing industry enveloped me and I couldn’t have felt more at home.
So when Salon Business’ editor, Charisse Kenion said in her opening speech that the hair industry had made her feel so welcome in the past year it certainly rang true for me.
The Sapphires reward the passion and hard work that goes into making franchising a success – an aspect of hairdressing often overlooked. For this reason it was wonderful, for me, to see the hardest working names of the industry letting their hair down for one night only and being applauded for their success.
The ballroom of The Dorchester had been transformed into a glittering wonderland with twinkly blue lights and white tablecloths sprinkled with blue gems.
Seated at my table were sponsors of the Most Effective Website, Clarkson Hyde – which was won by KH Hair and collected by Darren Messias and Tim Fee. Andrew Seton from the company spoke to me about how important it is for salons these days to have an online presence and how thrilled they were to be sponsoring such a forward-thinking award.
After dinner we all watched enviously as Cara Sutherland’s ticket was selected from the raffle and she was presented with a 2-carat sapphire, kindly donated by Magill’s of London jewellers. With all proceeds from the raffle going towards John Frieda’s HAIRraising charity, no one at the event could begrudge not winning the much-coveted jewel, as everyone in the hair industry knows we all love helping out a good cause.
Catching up with Cara afterwards she spoke of her delight at taking it home, laughing about how she wants to have it made into a ‘huge rock’ to wear on her finger. It certainly was a worthwhile trip down from Edinburgh for her!
I also caught up with fellow Scot, Dawn Reilly, technical director of Balmain Hair, who was celebrating her wedding anniversary with business partner and husband Paul. She had thoroughly enjoyed the evening; especially host Dylan Jones’ (editor of British GQ), witty compering.
The evening was over before I knew it, with the final two awards being announced. First up to collect the last categorised award of the night was Andy Phouli and Stel Andrew, from Rush , who won the Franchisor Of The Year award, sponsored by Clynol. During their speech Andy spoke of how ‘privileged and blessed’ he felt to win the award and how important franchising is.
Finally, Charisse presented the extra special Sapphires Pioneer Award to Stephen Kee, managing director of Saks Hair and Beauty. Everyone here at Salon Business was especially delighted when he thanked the magazine and website for ‘putting franchising on the map.’ After all, we organise the awards for this exact reason so it was lovely to hear it voiced, especially from someone as established as him!
I left the evening feeling so delighted and proud to be part of the industry, and still pinching myself from seeing icons such as Nicky Clarke and John Frieda and most definitely looking forward to next year.
