Keeping fit: royal and famous hairdresser Richard Ward
Celebrity hairdresser Richard Ward is best known for styling Kate Middleton’s hair for her wedding to Prince William in 2011, writes Margaret Hussey.
The 58-year-old has been in the business for almost 40 years and has won awards at his ‘super salon’ Hair & Metrospa in Sloane Square, west London.
Her client list includes Elizabeth Hurley, Susanna Reid, Sophie Raworth and Sarah Parish.
He lives in London with his wife and business partner Hellen, with whom he has two children.
What did your parents teach you about money?
My father always told me not to lend money that I couldn’t afford to lose, which I didn’t listen to. Whenever I have lent money, I have never gotten it back.
My mother had two hairdressers in Folkestone and we lived upstairs. I remember going down when I was four years old and seeing banks and banks of hood dryers. Back then, no one dried their hair with a hairdryer.
My mother’s dream was for me to go to a private school, and so I did, in Sutton Valence, in Kent. Only when I was older did I realize that it was always a struggle. My parents had to take me out of school after my final exams because they had gone into debt. Then they made an investment in a hotel and basically lost almost everything in the late ’90s.
Their debt taught me financial security: they gave me the gift of desperation.
Did that take you to the hairdresser?
Mum took me to London when she was doing my hair when I was 16, after telling me she had left school.
While I was sitting in the waiting room there was a great hustle and bustle: there were modeling and music castings. It was the eighties. Something got into my head. I got a job in a salon sweeping floors and washing hair, and moved to London when I turned 17.
Have you ever struggled to make ends meet?
When I started I earned £28 a week, but my rent was £30. I had to survive on tips.
I qualified in two years and cut people’s hair after work for £20 a time.
I stayed in a basement in Chelsea with a school friend whose family had a lot of hereditary money. I would go to parties and people would say, ‘What do you do?’ “I’m a hairdresser” at best would be a conversation stopper, at worst they would be laughed at. It completely drove me to succeed. By the time he was 25, he had saved £25,000.
Have you ever been paid silly money?
I was once flown to Monaco to cut three people’s hair for £5,000 each – £15,000. We traveled by private jet and they hosted me for the weekend. I was cited in that particular client’s divorce for spending that amount of money!
What was the best year of your financial life?
Probably when I did the Royal Wedding in 2011. That year the salon took off, with Johnny Depp, Kim Cattrall and Michael Caine coming in.
I also had Tangle Angel, my hairbrush company that I have now sold. I also became more comfortable with myself, appearing on Lorraine and This Morning. All the stars aligned.
Kate had been coming to the salon before she married Prince William, but I didn’t know who she was. They were just a family who had a flat here in Chelsea. I still look after the family and the Duchess of Edinburgh.
Most expensive thing you bought for fun?
An iridescent silver Bentley, which had been my dream car. It cost me six figures but it was stolen last month outside my house in Fulham. I saw them do it.
It was three in the morning and, as happens to many men my age, I had to get up to go to the bathroom and heard a distinctive vroom.
There was one guy investing it and another on a computer. I thought, if I knock on the window I will draw attention to my house.
I won’t get another one. I don’t drive enough to justify it. I have a scooter that I go everywhere with.
What has been your biggest money mistake?
I had two failed hair product ranges before I became successful. We launched the first one around 2000 at Tesco; I don’t think we’ve done enough research.
Putting it on the shelves is the easy part, getting it out is hard.
A cut above: The Princess of Wales
We launched another one, a high-end one, on QVC. It was priced higher but we weren’t doing the volume.
We took our mistakes from those two and walked into Waitrose. I knew the formulas were great. It’s been there for 12 years and we just took it out and are selling it ourselves.
Best money decision you’ve ever made?
Tangle Angel, the detangling brush I launched at the Royal Wedding.
Nobody else liked it, my wife didn’t like it, but I had a feeling.
Within a year and a half we were £250,000 in the red and almost closed it. But we keep going. I got on a plane, traveled the world and sold it.
I went to Australia five times a year. I went to the United States.
We sold it to our Chinese distributor for a good sum and it did very well for us.
Do you have any property?
We have a small portfolio of properties in London.
We have been very measured in our investments. Whenever we have made money, our biggest goal has been to pay off those mortgages.
Do you have a pension?
Yes, I’ve been paying for one for years. Nothing material tastes as good as financial security.
If you were chancellor, what would you do?
Cut VAT in the beauty industry. Hellen, co-founder of the Salon Employers Association, is lobbying for this.
I have good feelings for business but I am dyslexic. I carry reams
of information in my head and Hellen is absolutely brilliant at all the things I’m bad at.
We can recover VAT on our stock turnover, but we are selling people’s time to stand and get their hair cut, and you can’t recover VAT in time.
We employ 100 people and have around 1,000 customers each week.
What is your number one financial priority?
Holding on to what we have. When you’ve had the trip I’ve had, I never take money for granted.
- For more information, visit richardward.com.
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