3 minute read
PARACHUTE WOMAN ARACHUTE WOMAN
UK-born stylist Lorraine Wilkins soars in small-town Canada
By Kim Hughes
She has won a tidy pile of awards in competitions, operated her own salon for a decade, met hehaswonatidypileofawardsincompetitions,operatedherownsalonforadecade,met and connected with her idol, Vidal Sassoon, dreams of one day running her own academy, and connected with her idol,Vidal Sassoon, dreams of one day running her own academy, and consistently manages to deliver her 12-year-old son to baseball games on time. and consistently manages to deliver her 12-year-old son to baseball games on time.
Yet arguably the most impressive thing about Lorraine Wilkins—owner and operator of Enviro Trends salon, Contessa finalist, two-time NAHA winner and super-smart cookie—is that she traded fashion-forward England for small-town St. Thomas, Ontario (population 35,000), on a whim and a prayer and actually made a go of it.
Talk about truth being stranger than fiction. Picture this: it’s 1987 and Wilkins, then 25 and glancing wanly beyond dreary Midlands England (the village of Great Wyrley, to be precise), happens upon two intriguing help wanted ads in Salon International. One job is on a cruise ship. The other in faraway and mysterious Canada….
“I’d never been there before and had no clue, but this guy in St. Thomas was advertising for a British stylist, and it seemed like a good option. So he sponsored me, and I came by myself. My mother didn’t speak to me for a month,” Wilkins chuckles. “She said, ‘I know you’re bored, but can’t you just go to another city in England?’”
Britain’s loss was Ontario’s gain. Still, few could have predicted the achievements that were to follow, Wilkins included.
Last July, she bagged the North American Hairstyling Award for Makeover Stylist, while Enviro Trends scored Salon Team of the Year. It was at the gala last July that Wilkins met Sassoon, her “inspiration forever. It was a great moment, and it’s because of him that I’m doing this now.”
Though Wilkins clearly has a mind for the more mundane aspects of managing a business, she admits preparing for and entering contests serves as a magic elixir to her more creative impulses.
“I’m really big on service and making clients feel very special when they’re in the chair,” she says during a mid-week break from work. “Turning a bad-hair day into a good-hair day is my goal. And reconciling that with the most dramatic aspects of working in competitions is what takes me out of my zone.
“That kind of left-brain, right-brain thing is most exciting. I think if you just stand behind the chair and do client after client day after day, you can’t be fully complete. At least I can’t. This is a great little city I live in, but I need to escape from time to time and explore what else is going on in the world. That way I can come back inspired and be a great stylist for my clients. Creating something for competitions is such a buzz, and you’re working with a whole team and everyone has got that lift.
“I love cutting, and if I had to choose between cutting and colouring I’d choose cutting,” she adds. “But colour really inspires me. If somebody else has an idea with a colour and I have an idea with a cut, I’m really off on that. My girls (at Enviro Trends, which operates both as a salon and retail space) are awesome colourists.
“I’ll grant that it often seems the wildest submissions in competitions come from the seemingly least likely places. I still travel back and forth a lot to London, so my inspiration in part comes from there. I’ve always been very passionate about fashion and the industry and what’s going on. So hopefully I’ve brought some of that influence to the town.” S
