Gary: So, to start, how did you first get into the industry?
Akin: I’m 56 now and I’ve been in the industry since I was 17. I originally wanted to be a fashion designer; I loved fabrics and altering my own clothes.
At the age of 12, I was a rockabilly with a quiff, which was quite unusual in those days – especially at my school! When I was 17, I enrolled at the London College of Fashion, but my family were in the clothing trade and advised me against a career in such a hard-fought industry. Then, by chance, I visited a distant cousin who owned a salon and it just turned my world upside down. It was 1979 and unisex salons were still very new. I can just remember walking in and seeing the girls and boys, hearing the music and feeling the atmosphere.
It felt like I was in a club and I was just blown away by it all. I knew this was what I wanted to do. I was unsuccessful at my first few interviews, which nearly made me give up, but thankfully was given a chance by John Rawson at his academy in Leicester Square. At the time, John was one of the best hairdressers in the world and to be taught by him I just felt like the luckiest kid on the planet. I loved it from the minute i arrived and it really changed me as a person.
Gary: What was your next move when you completed your training?
Akin: I knew that before I settled down to work in one salon I wanted to get a number of different experiences, so I worked at various salons for eight months each. I settled down a bit at Ocean Boulevard in Covent Garden, which was a bit like the Club Tropicana of hairdressing with palm trees in the salon and we’d all be wearing beachwear or Hawaiian clothes, it was a lot of fun.
I’ve never told anyone this before, but I also changed my name while I was working there as the guy who owned it liked his team to adopt a character, so I used to call myself Red! I worked there for about 18 months and started to do some photographic work and some shows, but by the age of 22 I felt quite unhappy there; and I decided to leave the industry.
Michael: What prompted that?
Akin: The salon owner was really lovely, but I just found myself losing my motivation. I tried going freelance, but I hated it – I’ve always been very specific about how I work, so washing hair over the bath or cutting hair on a kitchen chair didn’t feel right.
Just at this time I was introduced to Clive Collins and Paul Simbler. They had just opened a salon in Mill Hill, North London, called Hair on Broadway. I worked there for a couple of years and I really enjoyed that feeling of being a bigger fish in a smaller pond. However, when I turned 24 I decided to branch out on my own. I found a great old Victorian building in Islington and I decorated it exactly how I wanted it to be; wicker chairs, one long mirror and wooden floors. It was called ‘Konizi’.
As far as I was concerned, if it looked trendy then it was going to be successful. I learned the hard way that owning a salon is not just about being busy but much more about making sure everyone else in your team is busy and I ended up killing myself with the amount of work. Clive and Paul would come and visit me every couple of weeks as they missed me, and I really missed them, but I resisted going back for three years.
To read the full interview find it in our online October issue- Click here
