How I Became an Artistic Director to The Chadwick Hairdressing Team at the Young Age of 23 …

I was recently interviewed by the Artist, Icons & Entrepreneurs Podcast, and one of the first questions asked me was “How did I become an Artistic Director to the Chadwick Haircutting team at the Young age of 23”… Above is a video clip of that segment of the Podcast and also here’s the written transcript in case you’d rather read it…

…Hopefully it will Encourage some of you Younger Hairdressers to Follow Your Dream like I did Mine!…

And if you’d like to watch the entire Podcast interview, Click Here to go to the Artist, Icons and Entrepreneurs YouTube Channel, and while you’re there, don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to this Awesome Podcast… Lulu Benavidez and Sue Hanson are doing an Amazing Service to the Hairdressing Community by providing these awesome interviews of Hairdressing Legends that we can all learn from.

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[LuLu]

Hey, David, welcome to Artists, Icons, and Entrepreneurs. So, David, we're going to start with the first question, and, you know, you are a wealth of information, so I don't think we'll have enough time on this podcast, but we're going to go through some of the things in your career. You started back in Tampa at the age of 16, and you traveled all the way to London, you studied under world-renowned stylists.

What impact did that early international experience have on your career and outlook?

[David]

LuLu, I think it really has everything to do with my career. You know, it really set the tone, I think, of my career. What I mainly learned was professionalism, really be a professional behind the chair, and I learned how to teach, which was important.

You know, I was able to work with the Chadwick's at a very young age, and the Chadwick's taught me how to become a teacher. I mean, I was a teacher before I even had a big clientele, if that makes sense. So, you know, and also, you know, back in the 70s, everything sort of neat and groovy came out of London, you know, so it was such a cool place to be.

It really set the tone for everything, and also I met some incredible, amazing hairdressers of that time, you know what I mean? And it was just everything. I worked at a very nice salon on King's Road, but I couldn't work.

Well, do you know anything about the Glemby Company and all that?

[LuLu]

Mm-hmm, yeah.

[David]

Glemby and Seligman and Latz? Okay, so they worked with the Glemby Company. And my brother, I had an older brother who was a hairdresser, that's how I got involved with the business.

So, he was an early, he was a Chadwick trainer when they first came to the United States. And they sent him to London to open a school for them, and that's how I ended up going to London. But I worked for Glemby in London because I didn't have working papers, so I had to work in a private salon, you know what I'm saying?

Because I was illegal. I wasn't illegally there, but I couldn't work. So, I actually got hired by a small salon on King's Road, who paid me cash under the table.

And so I worked there as a hairdresser, but because my brother was setting up the school for the Chadwicks there, I was able to sit in on the classes, how to teach classes, and I learned how to teach, and I learned advanced hair cutting skills, and I learned how to do a slide presentation, and I learned all that stuff. So, every time that I wasn't in my salon, I was at the school learning from them. Does it make sense?

[Susan ]

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Of course.

[David]

That opportunity was like golden, you know?

[Susan ]

Yeah. Well, and I guess the thing that strikes me is that you were, I think, I remember this, you were 23 when you were the Artistic Director with the Chadwicks team, and then you came back to the States and were working at Saks Fifth Avenue. And I think that this is so impressive to me, being a mother, a grandmother, and a great grandmother, that at such a young age, you were able to balance a career like that.

I mean, just working at Saks is kind of a high-pressure thing, but then to be on the team with the Chadwicks, what do you think you learned about, you know, balancing things at such a young age?

[David]

Well, you know, I was so young, and you know, when you're young, you have so much energy, first of all, you know? I mean, I would work all day and then go out dancing all night. I mean, drag it at five o'clock in the morning, get up and do it all over again, you know?

You know, here's the thing. The salon at Saks Fifth Avenue was owned by Seligman and Latz.

[Susan ]

Yes.

[David]

And the Chadwick school, which was only two blocks down the road on Fifth Avenue, at 666 Fifth Avenue, was also owned by Seligman and Latz. Yes. You see what I'm saying?

Because the Chadwicks in those days were employees of Seligman and Latz. So as a SNL, Seligman and Latz employee, I was able to work at the salon at Saks Fifth Avenue and work at the training center as well.

[Susan ]

Does that make sense? Yeah, sure.

[David]

And they were literally like just across the street from each other. I mean, across the street, like two blocks down. So, I mean, sometimes I work half a day at the salon and half a day at the school and vice versa.

And I also travel a lot during that.

[Susan ]

Yeah.

[David]

Because I was a trainer for SNL. You know, I was a trainer for Glemby to begin with, and then we all defected Glemby and went to work at Seligman and Latz. And with Seligman and Latz, some of these would send me all over the country, all over the United States and Canada, teaching at their SNL salons.

[Susan ]

Yeah.

[David]

Does that make sense? So that was a lot of traveling there as well.

[Susan ]

And maybe for our audience who are non-hairdressers, because we do get non-hairdressers, probably, well, not probably, the two largest department store chains were Glemby and SNL. They were both based out in New York, and they were in every major department store in the country. I think at one time, SNL had something like salons.

[David]

Yeah, they had offers of 2,000 salons. You know, see, the thing is like what people don't realize is like during the, OK, like in the late 70s, in the late 60s, right? Like I got into hairdressing because my older brother was five years older than me.

And he was a hairdresser. And he started off in the 60s, you know, the big bouffant hairdos and all that stuff. But at a very young age, he moved to New York City.

And his first job in New York was the beauty salon at Bergdorf Goodman.

[Susan ]

Yeah.

[David]

And Bergdorf Goodman was a Glemby salon.

 [Susan ]

All right.

 [David]

So I was going to become an architect. I know that's one of your questions. I'll jump the gun here a little bit.

But I was going to become an architect. I mean, I went to all through junior high school and high school, I took architectural drafting classes. But the summer between my junior year and senior year in high school, I went to spend the summer with my brother in New York City.

So, from Tampa, Florida, a Tampa boy, you don't say 15 years old. I went to New York City to spend the summer of my brother. And by then, the Chadwick's had come started working for Glemby.

And the Chadwick, the Chadwick's were employed by Glemby to put together an education program to teach at all of their salons, all this new cutting and blow drying thing that was going on because there was like a revolution going on those days in hairdressing. So, they wanted to train a whole bunch of young hairdressers how to cut hair and blow dry hair, as opposed to doing roller sets and stuff like that. So, my brother, being a young hairdresser in those days, was one of their very first trainers ever.

He was what they called an Eggman. For some reason, they called these young boys, these young trainers Eggman. They weren't all boys or girls, of course, but they were called Eggman for some reason.

But anyway, so my brother was a trainer for the Chadwick's. I was 15 years old, had no idea to become a hairdresser. And I came to spend the summer in New York City with my brother.

And he had to work, of course. I was there for the whole summer. So I would hang out a lot of times at the salon.

I brought up with him. And when I would go to the salon and see these beautiful girls walking around, you know, and they're playing great music and the vibe of the salon. It wasn't like the bouffant hairdo days.

 It was now, you know, cut and blow dry. And they're wearing jeans and playing rock music and, you know, saying shag haircuts and all that. And man, I just got bit like the bug with a bug so bad.

I'm like, I need to do this. This is what I want to do. You know what I mean?

As a matter of fact, I hung out the salon so much that summer that the manager of the salon put me to work, like folding towels and stuff like that. He just said, you can hang out here. You might as well, you know, do something.

I paid for something, you know, do something. So, you know, I was like folding towels and filling shampoo bottles and stuff like that. But so my plan was to, you know, I'm going to become a hairdresser and I'm going to move up here and work at Berghoff Goodman with my brother.

Like that was like my plan. So I went back to Florida, came back home to Florida. And I told my father that I wanted to become a hairdresser.

And my father was fine with that. My father's very supportive with everything. But he was like, OK, first thing, you have to finish high school, which wasn't a problem because it's true.

You have to be high, have a high school diploma to get a hairdressing license anyway. I was going to a vo-tech school learning drafting classes. I was doing three hours a day of drafting classes and they had a cosmetology school at that school.

So I tried to transfer. They wouldn't allow me to transfer because I was a guy. So no boys allowed in the cosmetology class.

So I ended up quitting high school, quitting day school after 11th grade and finishing high school at night because they started adult education at that time. So I would go to night school for my senior year, like two nights a week or three nights a week. And then during the day I went to cosmetology school.

So I went to cosmetology school and high school at the same time. When I turned 17 years old, I graduated from high school in June of that year. That would have been 73.

And the very next month, July of 73, I became a licensed hairdresser in the state of Florida at 17 years old. That's how I started so early. While I was in school, you're going to find this hard to believe, I know.

While I was in school, while I was in beauty school still, just halfway through beauty school, my brother says, look, I'm doing a class. You know, why don't you come up and attend our haircutting class? So I went to New York and took advanced haircutting classes with the Chadwick's when I was 16 years old.

I wasn't even a licensed hairdresser. I was still in beauty school. And I learned, you know, the Chadwick's system of cutting hair, you know, the bobs and the layers and everything.

I mean, I was there. It was a week-long class. So I took a week long class and I was so into it.

And let me tell you something, that being that I took all those years of architectural drafting classes, when they start talking about holding angles and elevation and degrees, that all made sense to me. Perfect.

[LuLu]

Yeah.

[David]

I mean, totally clicked with me. You know what I'm saying? It's like, I mean, because some of the people are sitting there going like, I don't know what the hell they're talking about.

And I'm like, I totally get this. I totally get it. So so I went to.

So I came back to Tampa, to my beauty school, Tampa Beauty School, and I started teaching my instructors how to cut hair. Yeah. I taught them the haircuts I learned in New York.

I swear, it's a true story. And so that's that's how it started, you know. So as it turned out, I finished beauty school.

I worked in Tampa for maybe like about six months. And then the Chadwick's, like I just said to you a minute ago, sent my brothers to London. So my brother called me.

He's like, hey, you want to go to London with me? I'm like, sure. So that's kind of how that works.

So I went to London with Danny. I worked in a salon. I learned how to teach.

All that stuff was great. And then they wanted him to stay there longer. They wanted him to stay there for like another year.

But I wanted to get back to the States. My plan was to get back. So the only problem is I was broke.

You know, I had a great time, but I didn't make any money. So I came back to the States and I ended up coming back to Tampa, Florida for about a year. I worked at a Glempy Salon and then we moved over to S&L.

I worked at one end of the shopping mall, the Moss Brothers department store salon for Glimpy. And then when we defected Glempy, I went across the mall to the other end of the store, the other end of the mall to Robinson's department store and started working for SNL. And I worked there for about a year, I guess.

And then I just said, you know what? I have to get to New York. It's either now or never.

You know, I was 21 years old at that point. I mean, I was in London at 18 years old, right? So at this point, I was about 21 years old.

And I said to myself, you know, David, you got to go. This is it. You got to go now.

And by that time, my brother had come back. He was already back in New York. And so I got in contact with the New York corporate offices.

And I said, you know, I want to move to New York City. I said, can I get a transfer or something? You know, because I was working at SNL Salon in Tampa.

And they're like, oh, yeah, of course. We'd love to have you up here. When, you know, where do you want to work?

We have Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale's, Lord & Taylor. They started naming these like stores they had in Manhattan, you know. So I had my pick of it all.

So I figured, you know, start at the top, you know. So I went to Saks Fifth Avenue. And that's how I went to Saks.

And then we opened the school, the training center at the, in the corporate offices at SNL, which was at 666 Fifth Avenue. And so that's how all that started. Was that too much information?

[LuLu]

No, no, not at all. That's great.

Cheers,

David