Paul Stafford ALFAPARF Milano Global Ambassador DENMAN Global Creative Director Hairdresser, Husband, Father and much more… IH: Please introduce yourself to our readers Paul…
Paul: I'm Paul Stafford, I have a salon in Belfast with my wife, Lisa. We've run our own salon now for 25 years. I grew up in Belfast, but my parents moved to Dundalk in the early 80s. So I started my hairdressing career there and worked with some amazing hairdressers. But I always felt that I was going to go back to Belfast as that was really where my spiritual home and my soul was. I moved back when I met Lisa in 1986 and I went to work in a great salon called ZACH's. It was a very unusual place. There were probably 50 or 60 hairdressers working there at the height of ‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland. So you can imagine what that was like! ZACK’s was a hotbed of creativity. Everybody was on their ‘A game’ and there was a competitive spirit among us, everybody wanted to be the best and have the biggest clientele, and do the strongest haircuts and the best work. But it was ‘good’ competition. It wasn't, vicious or aggressive and there was no meanest in it. We were a real collective team. I probably found my desire for the creative aspect of the industry there. You know, that's where I first started photographic work and competitions. But my background in Dundalk was also instrumental, not because I worked there with a great hairdresser that trained with Sassoon in the 60’s, but he gave me a real passion for creative and precision haircuting.
