TERRI KAY CELEBRATES 40 Terri Kay, salon manager at Mark Leeson in Mansfield, UK, and a multi-awardwinning hairdresser, is celebrating 40 years in hairdressing this year. Known for her stunning photographic collections, which have won her two places in the British Hairdressing Awards Hall of Fame, Terri is also at home in the salon looking after clients. “I think my career has lasted so long because it never feels like an effort,” says Terri. “I have never felt like it’s a chore to go to work. I still enjoy every day.” It may surprise many who are used to seeing Terri’s incredible collections and her live work on stage, that she still spends around 95% of the time behind the styling chair. “I love my clients,” she says. “They become like family. You get to know so much about people. I would really miss working behind the chair. I enjoy helping make people feel better.” And it was in a Mansfield salon, four decades ago, that Terri’s career began at the age of just 16 as part of a YTS training scheme. By the time Terri’s apprenticeship officially started at the John Hawley salon, she was already so confident in her craft, that she was running a busy column exclusively looking after male clients. And so, the seeds were sown for some incredible success with men’s hair collections later in her career. It was at this salon that Terri met Mark Leeson, unaware at this time just how significant a part Mark, a future British Hairdresser of the Year, would play in her career. Terri went on to manage a number of salons in the local area and also worked as a freelance hairdresser while her son was young because of the extra flexibility this offered her. Once her son was a little older, Terri began to enter live hairdressing competitions, something she hadn’t done since the beginning of her career. It was while competing on the competition circuit that she met Mark Leeson again. By now, Mark owned his own salon in Mansfield — he’d actually bought
the John Hawley salon where they had both trained — and he was keen to expand his team. Mark offered Terri a job at the salon, and stressed that there would also be opportunities to work outside of the salon doing more creative projects such as stage work and assisting on collections. “Going to work for Mark was definitely a major career move for me,” says Terri. “I’ve done hair shows across the world, and worked on so many award-winning collections, including my own.“ Terri sites many highlights in her career since joining the Mark Leeson team, but possibly the one that stands out the most was working on her first winning collection for the British Hairdressing Awards’ Eastern category, which she went on to win three times. “This was the first time I had shot a collection for British,” recalls Terri. “I was in tears when I finished it. I found it so stressful, although I enjoyed it immensely. Putting together a collection is exciting and nerve-wracking — a lot of emotion goes into it.” Continues Terri: “This side of things gets easier over time as you get to know more. I had to learn to think of how hair will look in 2D when I was used to working in 3D. I’ve learned a lot over the years, this is just what comes of doing it regularly.” One of the biggest challenges when putting together a photographic collection is finding models that won’t appear in every other collection that year. One way that Terri and the team at Mark Leeson have found to get around this issue, is to do photoshoots abroad.
