A SIMPLE PLAN

A Simple Plan Plan

Stylist Bill Rowley thrives behind the chair

By Kim Hughes

Meet Bill Rowley, everyman super-stylist. He loves fashion, Paris, his flaming-red 1976 Alpha Romeo, eet Bill Rowley, everyman super-stylist. He loves fashion, Paris, his flaming-red 1976 Alpha Romeo, his pets (past and present) and being among a core group of pros who’ve made beauty and lifestyle hispets(pastandpresent)andbeingamongacoregroupofproswho’vemadebeautyandlifestyle TV show CityLine a ratings powerhouse. TV show CityLine a ratings powerhouse.

Entering his third year as host of the Contessa Awards (photo above), despite never having won one, ranks top 10 as well.

But if push came to shove, Rowley would swap the lot to continue doing the one thing that brought him fame and fortune in the first place: standing behind a chair, giving a client an awesome haircut. In fact, he did just that— almost—in 2000, when he closed his own successful salon, Kiva, for space on the floor of someone else’s shop.

Coming from almost anyone else, such a move might seem dubious. Yet Rowley, a stylist of great versatility and flare, is the genuine article. As he reflects on his career, Rowley spotlights his hits and misses with equal candor.

Take the fortuitous CityLine connection. “If God touched me once, it was in July 1990 when I went on CityLine the first time,” he cracks. “They found me, Kiva was 11 months old, and I was plucked out of nowhere and put on national television. And it changed everything.”

So luck has played a role in your career ascent? “Totally,” he says, “and I’m the first to admit it. But it’s fair to say I’ve managed the luck that has come my way.”

It wasn’t always thus, as a thumbnail bio of Rowley confirms.

Always interested in hair and fashion, at the dawn of the 80s, a Big Life Decision loomed. “It was really a choice between Ryerson for fashion design and Marvel for hairstyling,” Rowley says. “The Ryerson program was three years, Marvel was nine months, and I hated school so…. But that second day at Marvel, when they gave me the mannequin head and said, ‘Play,’ I knew I was at the start of a very long road.”

Still, he allows that “I kind of dropped out. I started in July and got sick the following January. By the time I got back to school, all my friends had graduated, and it was spring so I started skipping off and never quite finished.” According to Rowley, he had been working at a big downtown Toronto salon at the time. “One day I just sort of walked in and said, ‘I’ve finished school’ and they said

‘Great, now you can start working full-time,’ and that was that.”

Diligent assistant work gave way to marquee session and editorial work (“Back in the day when the magazines actually called the salons to book the stylists, and we did it for free for credit in the magazine.”) As his rep grew, Rowley admits, so did his ego, and it wasn’t long before he lost sight of the fact that his name was only as hot as the salon to which it was attached. “I had a good run, but I left that salon in ’86. And the work left me. I was flavour of the month by 20 and it was all gone by 23.”

Rowley’s story might have skidded into Movie of the Week territory at that point had he not been more grounded. “I always kept the partying in check.” Fast-forward to 1989: Rowley opens Kiva, where he flourished for 11 years before he closed it.

Yet he admits, “I adored the people I worked with. They were wonderful. But never in 11 years did I enjoy the other aspects of salon ownership. What got me into this business was standing behind the chair doing hair one client at a time. So the solution was simple—return to that.”

Now four years into his tenure at Philosophy, in downtown Toronto, Rowley sees clients at a more leisurely pace, revels in his craft and, at the end of the day, returns worry-free to the elegant home he shares with his partner David and their mixed-breed dog Sanford.

“When you make a name for yourself you can parlay that into different things—your own salon or line of products,” he says. “I took all my experiences and my name and parlayed it into being the best I could be behind the chair. That’s what I love. And then I get to go home at the end of the day,” he laughs. “That’s what I’m proudest of.” S

“I took all my experiences and my name and parlayed it into being the best I could be behind the chair... ”

Rowley is a regular guest expert on CityLIne with Marilyn Denis.