Earlier last month Elena Lavagni, co-owner of London based Salon Neville Hair and Beauty and “service provider” to the world's one and only Amazon Salon featured on Gordon Miller's podcast Hairbrained conversations. In this episode Elena makes a strong case for proactive evolution of how salons think about business and technology to remain competitive in a fast-changing world – and shares learnings from her experience working with Amazon and with her own Neville team over the course of the pandemic.

Altruism, is when a person shows selfless concern for the well-being of others. A beautiful trait of character that I hold dear to heart and have also taken great pride in observing amongst some of my team members. In particular our colour director Seniz Alkan who recently decided to help raise awareness and funds for a little boy called Metehan. Metehan was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy type 1 - a neuromuscular disease so severe that many children with SMA type 1 do not reach the age of two.

As SMA is a rare disease, Novartis charges a huge fee to cover their R&D costs and make a profit: Zolgensma costs $2.1 million – with additional expenses such as travel, accommodation and consultancy fees, the total amount of reaches $2.45 million (currently £1.9m). Since deciding to join the cause to help Metehan, Seniz has raised over £100k. As a close friend and colleague I am keen to help raise further awareness about Metehan’s story and terrible disease.

For those of you who are interested to find out more or might wish to donate you may do so here:

www.metehansmajourney.co.uk

Throughout the month of September Redken hosted a UK Instagram competition with the infamous Behind The Chair social account inviting colourists around the country to share the very best of their colour transformations using the #redkenxbtc.

Seniz Alkan – Colour Director, who began her career 18 years ago when she started working a Neville Hair & Beauty is a huge fan of the Redken products and jumped at the opportunity to enter the competition.

Having trained as a colourist at the salon and having since worked her way up to Colour Director at the salon, Seniz’s experience has enabled her to develop many colour techniques influenced by her work travels around the globe.

Seniz never stops learning and developing colour trends, and she regularly travels to Los Angeles where she has visited top salons including John Barrett, Tracy Cunningham and Ramirez Tran where she met top colourist to the stars Anja Burton 8 years ago.

Anja and Seniz have since worked together on creating a new variation to the classic Ombre/ Balyage, the Ombralayage, which is exclusive to Neville Hair & Beauty.

Ever the innovator, Seniz, who practices from her own ‘Colour Pod’ at the salon, has created trend after trend seen on the likes of London’s top press, including her new Silhouette Slicing technique she pioneered Spring 2020.

It was in her new Pod that Seniz bleached her client Bria's hair to platinum blonde. A winning look according to Redken and Behind The Chair who awarded Seniz with second place.

Alkan says; "Bria has very fine and brittle Afro Caribbean hair but she was keen to undergo a drastic colour transformation. After our initial consultation we agreed that a platinum blonde would be the ultimate colour for her. To achieve this colour, I used Flashlift with Bonder + 20 Vol to enable me to leave the bleach on as long as I could without compromising the condition of her hair. This mixture meant I was able to lift all the undertones and unwanted colour and achieve the brightness necessary for a platinum blonde. We then proceeded to tone with 9B + 9V + 9P in equal amounts leaving the toner on for 15 minutes on dry hair. It’s important the toner is applied on dry hair for maximum absorption."

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Sophia Grace Karaket aged 11 at Thomas’s School, Battersea has undergone a massive makeover in the name of charity. Over the past year she has grown her hair beyond shoulder length with the knowledge she would have a dramatic cut at Neville Salon, 5 Pont St. A salon who she entrusted totally for this momentous occasion.

This will be Sophia's second dramatic hair cut for charity. Where she has kindly donated to Chain of Hope Charity and Little Princes Trust.

On this occasion, she has raised a whopping £5,000 for Chain of Hope, a Chelsea based charity that helps provide complex heart surgeries to children in need. It is estimated that as many as 15 million children die or remain severely ill every year through potentially treatable or preventable cardiac diseases. Chain of Hope exists to provide children from developing countries affected by life-threatening heart conditions with the medical treatment to save their lives.

In addition, Sophia donated her hair to the Little Princess trust which provides real hair wigs, free of charge, to children and young people who have lost their own hair through cancer treatment.

Dana from Chain of Hope comments, 'We need more good small souls like Sophia. These acts of kindness make a huge difference to charities like Chain of Hope and the little Princess Trust.

justgiving.com/fundraising/sophia-grace-karaket

On May 17th, Anya Hindmarch will unveil “The Village”, a new retail concept on London’s Pont Street.

The Village, launching on Monday, 17th May 2021, is a new retail concept and the realisation of Anya Hindmarch’s long held dream.

The village will be a collection of five neighbouring Anya Hindmarch stores located on Pont Street, London, the original home of the brand. It will in addition to being a home for all the brands, a destination for experiences, exhibitions and collaborations such as our upcoming partnership to celebrate the launch of Anya’s first book, ‘If in Doubt, Wash Your Hair” with a three week pop up hair salon.

Owners Neville Tucker and Elena Lavagni said: “Being a long-time resident in Pont Street and as this is where Anya first started it was great to hear that she was coming back all guns blazing for this new Pont Street Village concept. We were delighted to be asked to participate with her in a 3-week hairdressing pop up in her 60’s concept salon.”

The salon that will be opening its door from May 17th will offer wash and blow-dries and bookings will be available from Monday 17th May until Saturday 5th June between 10 am and 8 pm. These can be made by emailing hairsalon@anyahindmarch.com stating your phone number. A member of the Anya team will then call you to make your booking and payment will be taken at the time of booking.

Prices are as follows:

• Blow-dry £30 (including a coffee from The Anya Cafe)
• Blow-dry £40 (including a glass of champagne from The Anya Cafe)
• Private session: Blow-dry for 4 people £160 (including 4 glasses of champagne from The Anya Cafe)

We look forward to seeing you at:

The Village:
15-17 Pont Street
London SW1X 9EH