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A trade can take you everywhere

One cannot help but be impressed as Kay Deakin tells her career story; going from shy 16-year-old taking on a hairdressing apprenticeship against all advice to the employer of a team of 33 across three beauty salons.

The owner of Hawke’s Bay business, Visage Hair and Beauty, had to argue her way into the trade, after being told by her principal and teachers that hairdressing was only for those who could not do any other kind of work.

The now successful businesswoman was a guest speaker at the annual Industry Training Graduation Ceremony on Wednesday night, congratulating those who had completed their trade qualifications last year.

“Who would have thought some 47 years ago that [I] would still be in my chosen profession and be standing in front of you tonight telling of that journey?”

For the graduates listening to her story, the way things were back in the late sixties and early seventies must have seemed unreal.

“My wage was $8 per week – our top selling perm at that time was also $8. There was no equal pay in those days either . . . men got paid more.

“There were rows of ladies under hair dryers smoking cigarettes, and ladies leaning forward over a basin to have their hair washed.”

She remembered her very first purchase bought with her meagre pay; a handbag that took her six weeks to pay off.  “I still have that handbag today as a reminder, I can’t quite part with it.”

By 1970, at age 19, she had her first salon, had won her first national hairdressing title and employed her first apprentice while remaining “blissfully unaware of what business really was all about”.

She had never stopped learning, she said.

In the early days there was no formal training. After an apprenticeship spent watching and copying seniors, most innovation came from trying to decipher foreign language beauty magazines and practicing with new contraptions such as blow wavers.

Her passion for fashion and trying new things had taken her to many countries, she said, including as part of a New Zealand styling team competing in Las Vegas.

She had always employed apprentices and said there was no greater pleasure than watching young talented people grow and develop. 

4 October 2017

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