In a quiet street in south London’s trendy Brixton district, known for its ethnic diversity, 25-year-old Kristian Robertson parks his trailblazing mobile salon. For a little over a year, he has worked for Trim-It — a start-up offering haircuts for people with Afro-Caribbean roots. Opening the customized van’s sliding door reveals a silver barber’s chair, a large mirror, a hair dryer and drawers overflowing with scissors, clippers and hair products..
As he carefully prepared his equipment for the day’s first customer, the meticulously groomed Robertson said that clients are “always amazed” when they see what is inside.
“Appearance is important, whenever you wanna go somewhere or even if you just wanna feel better about yourself, you get a haircut and it changes your whole day, changes your whole week even,” said Micah Henry, 24, one of Robertson’s 10-odd daily customers.
Photo: AFP
Henry, who uses Trim-It about once a month, said that it was the “most convenient” hairdresser he had come across.
Appointments are made via a mobile phone app, summoning a van to where the client is.
The start-up’s founder, 24-year-old Darren Tenkorang, said that the intimate setting of a van helped forge close relationships between hairdressers and their clients.
Photo: AFP
“The relationship that you have with your barber is a very special one and I feel like this barber shop actually intensifies that, because it’s so one-on-one that you can use your barber as a therapist,” he said.
Born to Ghanaian parents, Tenkorang was accustomed as a boy to visiting Brixton’s barber shops regularly with his father.
He said that the business idea came to him after enduring many long waits.
Tenkorang now wants to offer a faster service that is more adapted to the lifestyles of young people.
“We thought it was a good idea to put a barber shop in the back of a van and for an app to be able to book a barber shop to a location,” he said.
The first van launched in February last year, and the start-up now employs nine people and boasts five mobile salons covering most of London.
“I am just really surprised at how much it has actually taken off,” the young entrepreneur said. “We’re definitely going to try to conquer London, but our goal is to actually just take over the whole of the UK and thereafter, as everybody is saying, world domination.”
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