Lisa picking up British Hairdresser of the Year 2005. After joining Umberto’s salon in 1989,

under his critical eye Lisa flew up the ranks at lightning speed. By 1995 [still only in her early twenties] she had been promoted to technical director of the group and was running her own floor, where she coloured up to 30 heads a day. But that still wasn’t enough. “I had done really well but I wanted

more. I’d look at the people around me, entering – and winning – the awards I wanted to go for and I knew I had to do something. With colour, I had it – I just got it – but with my cutting I wasn’t technically strong, and I wasn’t at a standard where I could finish a look properly on stage,” she says. But Lisa being Lisa, she wasn’t going

to let that stand in her way. Despite having worked her way to the top at Umberto Giannini, and not having picked up a pair of scissors or dryer for almost a decade, she went back on the salon floor as a junior cutter and blowdryer.

72 “It was tough, don’t get me wrong,”

she admits. “But I’ve never been someone who got too big for their boots.” Back on ground level with the other

juniors, Lisa realised that if she was going to master the full spectrum of hairdressing expertise she’d just have to follow the rules she applied to creating stunning colour: there are no rules. She explains there is method in her

madness: “I think what I had to get over was that you didn’t have to be exact, so technical with your cutting. That just wasn’t for me. I don’t colour like that, I’ve always worked to shape and used visual placement, so I think I had to realise that I could also cut hair in the same way. For me gorgeous hair is about texture, it doesn’t have to be perfect.” And with that realisation came

the breakthrough she needed; Lisa won, amongst a catalogue of awards, Midlands Hairdresser of the Year in both

1998 and 1999. They are proud moments which

still make her smile to this day, but a personal tragedy soon made Lisa consider whether she could carry on working in the hairdressing business. “Everything was going brilliantly; I had

just got all the things I’d been working so hard towards, and then Umberto passed away in 2001. Losing him had a massive impact on me, he was my rock and we’d worked together for so long, it felt like I’d had my right arm cut off. I really could have given up hairdressing after that.” But Lisa knew she had to get back

on that horse. Without Umberto at her side – she affectionately refers to their friendship and hair partnership as “peaches and cream” – Lisa set about standing on her own two feet. She started working on her own

brand, and in 2002 opened the first self-titled salon, in her hometown of