A crisis in the world of French coiffure has been underscored by the looming bankruptcy of a celebrity hairdresser, reports The Times.
Nicolas Waldorf, who owes his fame to a popular television show, The Incredible Makeover, now in its fifth season, sounded the alarm over his Paris salon as the industry reels under pressure from inflation, Covid, taxes, women’s changing hair habits and a surfeit of salons across the country. A record number of businesses are expected to close this year.
Waldorf, 37, a salon owner for a decade and an Instagram influencer, has laid off five staff after a “crazy” fall in customers in recent months. “For the past three months, we have been at under half our target turnover. I’ve finished €40,000 in the red before paying salaries. I haven’t paid myself for a year and a half,” he told BFMTV news. “We used to have a two-year waiting list . . . and now it’s hard to fill the booking list.”
With more than 600 salons in liquidation in the first half of the year, les coiffeurs fear that 2023 will pass the record, set in 2015, of 1,089 business failures in an industry dominated by brand chains and franchises that employ one third of hairdressers.