From Gaillac to the Big Apple. Trained in a Tarn salon, Guillaume Massol is now living the “American dream”. At the age of 33 he works in New York where he does the hair for the greatest in the world of entertainment.
There are two pillars in Guillaume Massol’s success: talent and audacity. The first came out as soon as he learned to be a hairdresser. His mentors from Gaillac, Michel and Laurent, took him in when he was 16, trained him and kept him for six years, then gave him this advice that will become a rule of life: if you have to invest, it’s in buying a suitcase .
“I later understood the meaning of their message”: Guillaume Massol took advantage of his many trips to observe the profession, while working in the Dessange salon in Lyon, the brand’s largest in the province. Then he decided to pack up in New York.
“I skipped the stop in Paris, he explains. New York sweats with opportunities. It’s a more European city than American, because there are so many Europeans on a mission for a few years. There we said that only the sky has its limit”. .
Walking distance to Rockefeller Center and Central Park
With his three-year – renewable – visa where he had to prove that what he was doing was “exceptional”, he first registered in a salon where he was soon confronted with scams. “The first months I earned 100 or 200 dollars. I stayed there for ten months, but in the evening I distributed the card to big companies, I did my hair for free for many managers. In my business plan I said to myself: you’re doing it for free, but it will pay you back. He gave pays off pretty quickly.
He learned English with his clients, but got tired of being the tout of the salon and joined Laurent Dufour, one of the big names in New York hairdressing who offered to replace him. But when Covid hit New York, Guillaume Massol decided to recover by opening with two partners – Cédric, Belgian, and Frédéric, French – a salon in the Palace Hotel, not surprisingly, a stone’s throw from Rockefeller Center and Central Park .
The specificity of Guillaume Massol? “I adjust my technique according to the frequency and condition of the hair. The cut should help to find opulent, dense and healthy hair. If the client is convinced, it is an advertisement for me wherever I go. .”
Missions in Santo Domingo
The meeting with a Dominican “influencer”, Lorena, earned him seven years of missions of three or four days in Santo Domingo, where he rents a room and surrounds himself with a team of ten assistants. Guillaume heads the big sugar, coffee and real estate families.
“I reproduced this pattern in Miami, he stresses. I will also start in Toronto, which is an hour’s flight away, and in Guatemala City.” It adapts to the age of its clientele, “25-50 and up to 70 in New York”, as well as the spirit of the city or country: “In South America they have a more reserved air, without extravagance”.
In New York, which “makes” fashion, you have to be one step ahead of the creation, especially with stars like Sigourney Weaver or Victoria Silvstedt, who wear it regularly.
Job offers have come from Dubai. For now, Guillaume Massol is sticking to his road book. He knows where he wants to go and never forgets where he comes from.
