Cover Story: Cutting Edge

CUSTOMERS VIEW IMAGES OF THEMSELVES ENTERING ALONG A CATWALK AS THEY MAKE THEIR WAY INTO A GLAMOROUS HEADQUARTERS AND HAIRDRESSING SCHOOL IN LEEDS, DEFTLY DECKED OUT BY CAREYJONES INTERIORS

GHD – it stands for good hair days – was founded in Yorkshire in 2002 by self-described ‘accidental entrepreneur’ Martin Penny.  The company is best know for the ceramic hair-straightening tongs it introduced to the UK seven years ago, encouraging the biggest trend for poker-straight hair since the Sixties.  Its new headquarters, salon and hairdressing school in Leeds, which occupies the first two floors of the city’s tallest building, has been designed by careyjones interiors to epitomise audacious glamour.

Customers enter the building like coutuire models by a spectacular 13m under-lit catwalk, padded with luxurious cream leather.  Concealed cameras stream to screens at the end of the walkway so that customers see their image walking towards them as they enter.  Project Director Scott Ryalls says: ‘The entrance is intended to take visitors out of their comfort zone, heightening their awareness of the environment around them.’  The walkway leads to a reception area where ‘ghd’ products are displayed in custom-built shelves by Style Matters.

The ‘ghd Academy’, where the company holds specialist classes, accomodates 90 seats, arranged as in a lecture theatre, and 20 moveable styling stations.  It will also host fashion shows and champagne receptions.  A bespoke 6m x 3m display case in the academy displays the company’s range of styling products and forms a shop winodw visible from the adjacent road.  Also accessible from the reception area is a Big Brother-style ‘diary room’ where visitors can record video messages before they leave.

An angular corridor lined with campaign graphics leads to the offices and boardroom on the first floor.  ‘In the office space, we made design decisions to make it more akin to a boutique hotel than to a modern workplace’, recalls Ryalls.  Velvet and leather assert the company’s opulent image.  Office were eschewed for crystal chadeliers supplied by Concord:Marlin and cupboards, padded with cream leather, have been used instead of traditional filing cabinets.  Ryalls says the company has created the ‘antithesis of a stereotypical boardroom’.  A staff library, also on the first floor, features seating upholstered in gold velvet, supplied by Skopos.

‘It was clear from the outset that this was not going to be a regular office specification’, says Ryalls, whose team held weekly meetings with its client to discuss every aspect of design.  ‘The brief… really went across the board to incorporate careyjones’ accumulative experience in corporate, retail and leisure design’.  Ryalls says the biggest challenge was the diversity of the brief, how to create an office, salon and hairdressing academy that reflected the firm’s style.  Says Ryalls: ‘The design process was significantly more rewarding as ghd is passionate about design’.  This designer certainly knows how to make a dramatic entrance!

Words by Jamie Mitchell.   www.fxmagazine.co.uk

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