news
Parlour Tricks
Tyler Moore and Franz David in the chairs of their new salon.
An eco-friendly, humanitarian band of Coupe Bizarre employees has broken off and started a new hair salon: Parlour. Owner duo Tyler Moore (seven year manager of Coupe Bizarre) and Franz David (colourist and ten-plus year employee of Coupe Bizarre) took along a handful of their cohorts to open their own shop just a few blocks away. Although they officially opened on March 21st, they upped the celebration on Wednesday night at a launch party, where they showed off their new space, their hair styles, and some of their earthy initiatives.
A stylist showing off her parlour tricks.
The Parlour team has joined up with an American charity called Matter of Trust and donates all hair cuttings to the non-profit organization, which makes hair mats for animals caught in oil spills. “If you are so lazy you don’t want to do anything, it practically is doing nothing. It is just sweeping,” Moore says. The hair mats are placed under the animals to soak up the oil that is often difficult to clean off. Anyone who has had greasy hair knows that it is very efficient in absorbing oil and dirt from the atmosphere around us. Since their opening on March 21st, Parlour has sent off two boxes. “It gets really compact. It is actually pretty gross and feels like a dead animal,” Moore says.
Following the eco-choices of city salons like World Salon, they also carry a line of environmentally conscious hair products by Kevin Murphy. Inside the recyclable, funky, award-winning package-design are organic hair products free of paraben and sulphates. Parlour also doesn’t have a water cooler with paper cups, and their toilet is a half flush. Their philanthropy doesn’t extend to just the natural environment: during Gay Pride Weekend they plan to donate one tenth of their earnings to AIDS research.
Some fashionable red heads at the Parlour party.
The salon is located right on the cusp of old-hip Queen Street West and new-hip Ossington Avenue. “Someone told me it looks like if Dracula owned a modern contemporary museum, and I like that,” Moore says. “We wanted people to know it is a salon, not a carnival.” Most of their clientele has been loyal followers from their years in the industry, but they hope people will be attracted by their eco initiatives and their practical yet edgy hair aesthetic. “See that haircut over there?” David says, gesturing towards a woman with fiery orange hair, cut like a piece from a jigsaw puzzle, “That’s a really cool look, but we know that isn’t realistic for most people. We like classic stuff, but a bit different.” But, at least for the night, while party-goers modelled hair styles like coiffed pieces of art they slaved over for hours in their bathrooms, coolness trumped practicality.
Photos by Nick Kozak/Torontoist.