Heads Together with Michael Van Clarke & Nicky Clarke

Trolls, TikTok & The True Art of Hair

• Michael Van Clarke LLP | Big Little Content • Season 1 • Episode 2

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In this episode, Michael Van Clarke is joined by principal stylist and long-time collaborator Mitchell Scott for a frank and fascinating conversation. Together, they unpack the philosophy behind truly mastering hairdressing — and discuss the viral TikTok videos that sparked criticism and trolling online.

From the value of great assistants and the art of the Diamond Dry Cut, to why so many don’t understand the depth of real craft, Michael and Mitchell reflect on what sets their work apart — and why they’re happy to let the trolls talk.

Follow Michael Van Clarke: @mvanclarke

Follow Mitchell Scott: @mvc_mitchelltscott

Credits:

Producers: Michael Van Clarke, Louise Ortelli, Louise Oakley & Ben Lifton

Editor: Ben Lifton from Big Little Content

Production Coordinator: TYX Studios

Sound Engineer: TYX Studios



SPEAKER_00:

So how do you feel to be called pompous and sew up yourself?

SPEAKER_01:

Maybe the reason that they have those opinions of how we use assistants or how we train is just that they're like, they just

SPEAKER_00:

don't know. Because unlike a surgeon, your patient isn't anaesthetised.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, hopefully.

SPEAKER_00:

The industry's polarised between clippered hair, which is not that difficult, and one length here, which is not that difficult. Well, I'm joined today by Mitchell Scott. Some people, some clients think he's my son, a doppelganger perhaps. Mitchell has been with me for 10 years now since he was 16 and we've worked very closely together with his development. He has risen to a very senior position with us as principal stylist, has looked after our training academy for the apprentices. Mitchell, welcome to our podcast. Thank you

SPEAKER_01:

very much for having me. having me I think I'd just like to say that I think I'm the better looking version of Michael but yeah I mean I think it's I think there's definitely a resemblance but I think a lot of it's more mannerisms

SPEAKER_00:

yeah I think it's like when you have a dog and the dog ends up looking like you

SPEAKER_01:

maybe or maybe you hired me because you thought I look like you

SPEAKER_00:

so I don't know if you've been following some of our TikTok videos

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, Lou

SPEAKER_00:

told me about some of the comments. I think people have gone back to them. The same commenters have gone back to them and made more comments.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So it obviously affected them.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Badly. So how do you feel to be called pompous and sew up yourself for helping an assistant in their development?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I mean, that's the way I trained. That's how I started. So I think we said this before in another video, probably in the same video, that if that was the case, if I felt that way about it, then I'd probably do the opposite to the people helping me. I think you said earlier, it's quite... a really bad assistant someone who's not focused and not very present can make us look really bad but if you have a good assistant who you're not really having to tell them everything you want and what's next and no not that you know this that size whatever then they're sort of they're there but actually most of the focus is still on us the client's not really focused on them I think the focus is still very much on us.

SPEAKER_00:

In my experience, I've never seen a great stylist come out of a not great assistant. I think one follows the other. But what do you think makes a great assistant?

SPEAKER_01:

Someone who's present. Someone who's sort of always looking to be one step ahead and not having to be told what's next. I mean, at the start, sometimes it takes a while. for someone to get into the rhythm. But someone who picks up your style fast. And I think that just takes someone to actually be looking at what

SPEAKER_00:

you're doing. And reading the flow of work properly.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that's what helps develop one's skills. When I was helping you, I'm sure I've got a million clients who have said, you've got so many habits that Michael has. And it's just that you're picking up on those things. I'm working with you for like, I think it was a year and a half, wasn't it? I helped you. It's a long time. I was there about five days a week. So it's inevitable that I'm going to pick up some of your habits and which

SPEAKER_00:

are obviously quite good habits. Hopefully only the good ones.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, probably the bad ones as well. But technically, you want to work with someone and you want to pick up their way of working. Someone who's got a clientele, someone who's had some degree of success.

SPEAKER_00:

So what do you think is going on for these hairdressers that see it as being slavery, abusive? They've said, I would never do that to an assistant. It's just showboating. There are better ways to train.

SPEAKER_01:

What

SPEAKER_00:

do you think is going on for those hairdressers that don't want to see a different way?

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know. I don't know. Perhaps it's like... I think they think that we've got a bit of an ego thing. And I think they're probably scared to look like they've got some ego of having an assistant with them and helping them. I don't know what it is. I mean, what's the alternative? Yeah, the alternative is make coffee, wash hair, sweep up. And then one day a week you go to college.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think the alternative is the college system, which hasn't, I don't think, been that successful for the last... 30 years it's dominated the industry because apprenticeship was always the way you know 50s 60s you know and i'm sure there was lots of abuse of apprentices and the the government really took over and slowly took it all into colleges but i think three or four decades of that five decades has shown that it's not really been the solution i'd say you probably have less deep artistry going on in the industry now than there was at least in the 70s where people were trying much harder to go deeper into the craft I think it's it's dumbed down a lot of the skills in the industry which I think is a shame

SPEAKER_01:

I think you always compare it to like a surgeon you know some I mean I've got a few clients who are surgeons and there's certain techniques of holding equipment and There's certain things we do, like the clips, like the scissors, the way we hold them when we comb in, that there's a similarity between it. And when someone's doing surgery, they're asking their assistant, who one day will be doing their own surgeries, pass me this, pass me that. And you're learning as you're passing those things around. You're figuring out what the equipment's for, where you use it, when to use it. So if you're not standing with someone and physically contributing to what the client is experiencing, you're not really going to pick anything up. And you're not going to get that in college. I mean, we've had apprentices that have come from college and then we retrain them. And most of the stuff they do is on a doll's head.

SPEAKER_00:

At

SPEAKER_01:

college. It's very rare that they actually do it in person. At college. Yeah. I mean, Sienna, my assistant, she said that barely anyone at work, sorry, at college, actually knows how to wash hair. Because they're just blow-dry indulgences. So where she's been working with us, every opportunity she has between college, weekends and holidays, she's picked up loads of skills. I mean, she hasn't even started with us full-time. And I had a blow-dryer part of my clients here, which is brilliant. And she's been with us a few months.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, not long.

SPEAKER_00:

I think that's also what they miss. And I think what we've shown... in our work is that we develop apprentices very quickly because we have a commercial need to do that as well. And so we can take someone from scratch knowing nothing. Within three to six months, they're starting to do their first commercial work on clients, which is nothing like a college system. And I think that really shows that this... This mirroring training of assisting does work to develop the apprentices deeply. Plus also at the end of a three-year period, we expect them to have developed their own large clientele that's probably worth over 100,000 a year. Now, three years in college, you start with nothing. There's a huge difference.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and what was your training like?

SPEAKER_00:

My training of actually doing hair was not great, but I picked up a lot of how clients should be made to feel. So in terms of looking after clients, but the technical side wasn't great. You had to sort of make your own way. Model nights were haphazard.

SPEAKER_01:

Right,

SPEAKER_00:

okay. And I teamed up with a colourist. who would get models into the salon. We probably didn't start model night till eight or nine o'clock at night. And there was rarely a teacher. So you sort of fumbled your way through and often didn't finish till 11, 12 o'clock at night. And it wasn't, I'm not saying it was a great way to train, but I ultimately trained myself because I realized that I didn't, I didn't understand, but also the teachers that were teaching didn't understand fully and deeply what they were doing.

SPEAKER_01:

So is that where your sort of inspiration of how we run it, is that where

SPEAKER_00:

it's come from? Yeah, that's developed myself from trying to find a way that works not just for the clients, but also to teach, to actually teach people how to basically perform surgery on someone, but in a creative, artistic way. Because as you say, it is like surgery. You are cutting bits off people's bodies. It's their hair, but it is, you are cutting bits off people's bodies. And so you need all the skills of a surgeon, but you also need skills of an artist. And that makes the combination of skills that you need as a successful hairdresser quite unique in the marketplace. Because along with that, you also need very good social skills. Because unlike a surgeon, your patient isn't anesthetized.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, hopefully.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So those creative, technical, and social skills all together, you can't do without one of them.

SPEAKER_01:

You

SPEAKER_00:

won't be that successful if one of those is missing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, they're hard to combine naturally. Most people aren't natural.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you'll often have one of those characteristics that are stronger, but you have to develop the others too. Because cutting hair well is very, very technical. And that's why much of the industry has dumbed it down into one-length bobs. or what they call layered bobs that are just stacked bobs, shredded. It simplifies hairdressing, makes it quick to teach, quick to get the clients done and out. But that's not, that's a tiny part of hairdressing and it misses 99% of what's possible. Once you learn to sculpt hair properly, which doesn't come overnight, but to actually cut hair in three dimensions, then anything's possible. And you move into a completely different level of work. But it's that that's so... It's harder to teach. It takes far more commitment from the hairdresser to learn that way and to keep pushing through. It doesn't come in a year. It doesn't come in five years. You get better at it. You master it over time.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I remember you saying to me, I think I... It was probably, I don't know, five years ago or something. And I thought I'd really got my technique down to a T. And I thought it was like, yeah, this is the best it's going to go. And you said to me something along the lines of, yeah, you're good, but it will get much better. Yeah, the more you do it, the more you practice. And at the time, you don't really think. You think,

SPEAKER_00:

well, my work's great. You don't know. Yeah, exactly. You don't know. You only know what you know. Yeah. And it's only looking back that you realize how little you knew. Yeah. And I'll have it from people that have been with us for 20 years. They only realize at 20 that they really didn't understand it fully at 10 years. Yeah. They've gone deeper and deeper into that. Yeah. And that's really the whole point of a career. You know, if you increase your value continually through your career because you're going deeper into mastery.

SPEAKER_01:

It keeps it exciting.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it keeps it interesting because you get to another level and another level and you realize, wow, you know, I understand so much more

SPEAKER_01:

and

SPEAKER_00:

your capabilities expand and so your world expands.

SPEAKER_01:

I think as a junior, you think there's a limit. You think like you're going to hit a point and then that's it. And then you get to the point that you always thought you was going to get to and then say, Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. What's next? What's the next bit? Yeah. Um, yeah, I mean it, it does, it keeps our, our, our job very interesting. Yeah. It means we can like, it makes it much easier to turn up and,

SPEAKER_00:

and to agree a degree. We're all impatient. We all want it now.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, you know, the next, the next, but, um, Those sorts of skills, as with most arts, they take time. It's a layered stepping of mastery. It takes a lot of commitment and a lot of time.

SPEAKER_01:

You always refer back to the sort of medical industry. So was that a sort of inspiration of how you wanted to... run a business or was that just something that sort of

SPEAKER_00:

in terms of the business but in terms of the skills that we use you know there's certainly a surgery involved but it's also very technical you could bring in the world of architecture as well but it's three dimensional you could bring in you know along with building the work of a structural engineer So structural engineer and an architect will work together in terms of creating a structure. So the architect will have the idea of this is what I want it to be. This is the shape and what I want it to be. And the structural engineer will work out how it's possible. Whether it's a bridge or a building, the structural engineer will work out, well, for that structure to stay in place and to withstand the wind and movement, you know, the steel has to be this and that has to be that. Well, if you bring that down into hair, if you're creating a shape out of hair that has to withstand going outside and being blown around and then fall back into place, you're bringing in elements of structural engineering. Is that hair capable of that? If I make that shape, will it actually look like that? And the hair's different all over the head. So some people's hair could do that and some people's couldn't. Or one side might do that and one side might not. So one side you will cut differently in order for it to do something else. As you go deeper into this, it's way, way, way more complex than people appreciate. It may seem simple, but most hairdressing is done very simply. Once you go into three dimensions and proper layering, it's very, very complicated. You know, I appreciate the skill of someone like Michelangelo, an absolute genius. But not taking anything away from him, stone doesn't move. If you're carving stone, it doesn't go anywhere. So stunning, his work. When you're working with hair, it moves all over the place. And plus also, the shape that you want to end up with, you can't cut it as it is. It's not sitting as it is. You have to get to the ends. So what's very complicated in what we do is that first you have a creative idea of how you want it to look and decide whether the hair can do that. But then you have to create a virtual template in space of where you have to bring that hair in order to get to the ends that relates to how you want it to end up. And also you have to know, is the hair capable of doing that? Will that shape sustain itself? So it's way, way more complicated than cutting a block of stone or a hedge.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, no wonder the rest of the industry dumbs it down.

SPEAKER_00:

Because it's quite complicated. It is very, very complicated to do it properly and to do it well.

SPEAKER_01:

Do you think that the way you view hair... And the way that you see it as like it's an expert field, it's something that you can master.

SPEAKER_00:

The way we work, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

But do you think that's something very different to how other parts of the industry see hair? Do you think they actually see it as very complicated?

SPEAKER_00:

No, because they don't look at what we do. And you know that I can be doing someone's hair for... years where I'll do something on a video and it's something that I know the complexity in what I've done and you'll have someone say, yeah, I can do that. I'll do that in 10 minutes. What's all that nonsense that he's charging all that for? I can do that in 10 minutes. Just come to me, love. I'll do it for you. It's that level of I say ignorance. They just don't know that would suggest that what they do is the same as what I'm doing. And it's nothing like the same.

SPEAKER_01:

When I was assisting you, you would always say things like, it's not the stuff you can see. It's not the stuff you notice. It's the things that you don't notice that make such a big difference between the lower levels and the higher levels.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that's right. And for an assistant coming in, they will see a few percent of what's important on the first try. month first week first month of their work and they will think that that's everything there is to see because their world and their worldview is limited by their understanding as time goes by they start to see that there's actually more going on but but still they're not seeing even half of the picture you know even after a year they're not seeing half of what there is to see and you have to you have to connect on a very deep level to be open to that information coming in. And that's where a great assistant commits and you have a union where there's two people working together and it's almost like a dance, but they're totally committed to what they're doing together. And at that level, they will learn much quicker and they'll take on much more. Because it's almost like they're fully open to what's going on.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, we're quite lucky to have that sort of knowledge in the salon, but the rest of the industry doesn't have that. So, yeah, even if they spend 10, 20 years in a salon, if the people that are teaching them or the people they look up to aren't seeing it in that way, they're never really going to expand. So how do you get the rest of the industry to sort of, on a large scale, I'm sure that's something you've thought about.

SPEAKER_00:

Very, very difficult. But how do you actually do

SPEAKER_01:

that?

SPEAKER_00:

It's very difficult.

SPEAKER_01:

They've got to come and work for us.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And you see the, some of the people we take on, you know, from other countries as well, they're established in their own country, but they know they've got to a level. They've got that self-awareness and they come and they go through a retraining and they develop from there. But I think it's only if you really want to go deeper and take that journey that you will make that change for a lot of people. You know, they're, they're, sort of happy or not where they are and don't want to go through any more training or struggle

SPEAKER_01:

when you were teaching me how to do the diamond dry cut which is the way that we cut hair at the time I thought I fully understood it but obviously as time's gone on I've been with you for over 10 years now and I see it as a very different technique to how I first learnt it. It's something that's developed, you know, it's got better and better over the last 10 years. So what is it about that technique that sort of sets us apart from the rest of the industry, but also how did you come up with

SPEAKER_00:

it? I didn't start it. This is something that came out of Leonard's understanding to John. John didn't take it too deeply I saw in there the essence of what was there was correct but the execution that was going on was taking it there was no precision so it was coming into three dimensions but it wasn't really precise enough so I developed it further to something which would have the precision necessary but in three dimensions. So people are used to precision in a bob. You know, I think when Sassoon was doing the flat bobs in the sixties with tiny, tiny scissors, you know, and hairdressers were obsessive about, you know, again and again, you know, to the half mil, you know, again, perfect, perfect lines, you know, not that difficult really with a six inch pair of scissors, but it was all very tight and obsessive. I think hairdressing has got a little bit more fluid now. More hairdressers are moving away from those four and a half inch scissors, which I find a little bit ridiculous, that size. But to actually take that same precision away from just a two-dimensional line into a three-dimensional shape in every plane, here, here, and here, to actually be able to work precisely, you need a method that allows you to work on a curved surface, which is the human head. It's like half of a dome, but also to bring that hair to the right coordinate in this virtual template. And it's not that the system is complicated, It's very straightforward and it's the same sectioning pattern for any haircut you're going to do, which I think confuses some people because a lot of hairdressing methods are, you know, that's the pattern for that haircut, that's the pattern for that haircut. The diamond dry cut method, which is a three-dimensional sculptural method, it's exactly the same pattern for every haircut because the pattern's based on the head, not the haircut.

SPEAKER_02:

The

SPEAKER_00:

pattern is based on the head and the diamond section being the way to divide a curved surface in an equal way, which you see in architecture as well. Geodesic domes, diamond pattern around the curves. What changes it is how you bring the hair to your virtual template. That's what changes the shape that you end up with. Where you bring it to, how much you layer, how much you don't layer. But the virtual template is what changes. And that's the creative judgment in your mind's eye. What's the virtual template? It's like spatial geometry. You're creating that spatial geometry. But the sectioning is based on the head, never changes. So it's actually a very simple system. Why... it takes time to learn is because the actual art of being able to bring hair perfectly with the correct tension from the head to the point that you're choosing, that takes a lot of skill. And it's something which I've said in training. People think cutting hair is what they have to master. Cutting is no difficulty whatsoever. My children can cut a straight line if I hold it. They can cut paper probably better than most adults. Amazingly delicate shapes. The scissors are not the art. The art is to comb. The art is bringing the hair together. The correct section of hair, bringing the hair to this point in this virtual template, perfectly under tension. And then whatever's there is not difficult to cut. Anyone can do that with a pair of scissors. But you have to do the right piece. And that's all to do with the combing. And it's that skill which does take years of mastery. that confuses people into thinking that the method's complicated. The method's not complicated. The method's really simple. It doesn't change. But the creative judgment and then the technical ability to bring it to this virtual template that you've created, that's what takes time.

SPEAKER_01:

I think a lot of hairdressers can visualize that on short hair. It's easier on short hair. But with long hair, you're having to visualize the hair literally... Standing on end.

SPEAKER_00:

It's true. It's true. And it's interesting you say that because, you know, like with short men's hair, if it's that far from the head, it's less difficult to bring the hair from here to here. Yeah. You know, you can sort of get your head around that. Although even now, a lot of hairdressers don't even go there. You know, if you see it the way a lot of men's hair has gone, it's gone clippers and the top's not even layered properly.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

because they're not taught about layering. They'll thin it a bit, but actually it's much more clippers. So yes, the industry's polarized between clippered hair, which is not that difficult, and one length hair, which is not that difficult. But everything in between, the beauty of hairdressing lies in between, because that's this entire smorgasbord of choice. of anything that your mind's eye can see, you can create. But that takes a lot of skill and that's where the diamond dry cut comes in.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, it's a very impactful technique to see, but I would say working on long hair, it's way more impressive to the person because what they're used to like you know, whenever you get a new client, generally it is like an A-line, one length haircut.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's right. And then maybe one halfway up. Pyramid hair. Yeah, and then like

SPEAKER_01:

a couple of bits at the front. And nine times out of ten, if it's long hair, it looks like that. Yeah. And so when we do our technique, it's something we do on a daily basis. But when the client walks out, they're amazed. They just thought they had crap hair. It sort of takes us back to the comments on... on the assistant video, it's like maybe the reason that they have those opinions of how we use assistants or how we train is just that they're like, they just don't know. Or they don't understand what perspective you're coming from when it comes to the training. They see it as it is on there, but they're not really understanding how much more goes into it, how much more thought goes into it. Also,

SPEAKER_00:

clients aren't stupid. When they dismiss people paying the prices that we need to charge, which are professional prices, they see it all because it's in West One or because it's a fancy salon. Well, no, it's not. People aren't that stupid. To them, the client gets something that they value. They know it's at another level. It's special. It works for them. makes them look better, their hair easier to manage, and their hair lasts longer. And that's why they come back again and again and again for decades. You can't rip people off and then buy it year after year after year. It's good value to the client, even though the prices are high. Let's wrap that up for now. We can continue in a later podcast.

SPEAKER_01:

Brilliant. Thank you.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.