“My wife and I both had big Afros,” remembers hairdresser veteran Michael Barnett. “Perms were big but really horrible on hair. It was fun and different at the time, but do I see it coming back? God, I hope not.”
Now happily retired, Michael has seen a lot of trends come and go during his 34 years in the salon biz. When he started his career in 1974, he arrived at the tail end of weekly sets—clients who came in every week to have their hair washed and set on rollers. Not long after that, clients stopped asking for weekly sets and began getting regular haircuts. The mid-1970s saw the advent of the perm—a style Michael adopted for himself.
After the perm trend died down, coloring rose to prominence, and Michael became proficient in that too. He considers himself “a generalist,” meaning he does cuts, color or even the dreaded perm (if asked nicely). In fact, after opening his own salon in 1980 and merging that company with Paris Parker in 1998, he worked as an educator for Neill Corporation.
“I enjoyed educating younger hairdressers,” Michael says. “I liked watching the business grow and sharing my knowledge with the younger staff.”
The birth of a stylist
A New Orleans native, Michael had no intentions of becoming a hairdresser. But after a friend of his went to beauty school, he realized the career had its perks. “I thought, ‘What a great way to meet girls,’” Michael says. “And then about six weeks into beauty school, I realized I really liked it.”
After graduating, Michael trained at Vidal Sassoon in London for six months and also worked as a certified trainer for L’Oréal and Aveda. “I liked making people happy, and I liked that they felt good when they left the salon,” he says. “Even though it was work, there’s a creative edge to it.”
Michael, styling a model backstage at a hair show. | Source: Michael Barnett
High and low career points
He’s done hair for celebrities including Daisy Fuentes and Vogue’s French editor, and weatherwoman Margaret Orr was also a longtime client. Although Michael was very accomplished behind the chair, he still experienced the occasional mishap. Like the time a male client turned his head to say something while Michael was wielding clippers.
“I took a big wham right out of his head, by the occipital bone,” Michael says. “We fixed it by cutting it high and tight and making it look like it wasn’t an accident. He looked more military than he wanted to, but he was all right with it.”
In good company
Michael says that joining forces with Paris Parker is what allowed him to eventually retire, but more than that, it was a privilege to join that company. “I was honored when Debra and Edwin Neill came to my wife and me and offered to merge with our company,” he says.
Today, Michael spends his time painting watercolors, cooking and fishing by Shell Beach and Gulf Shores. And even nine years after retiring, he’s still part of our Paris Parker family.
“I keep in touch with Debra,” he says. “We always had a great relationship with Paris Parker, and we looked forward to expanding whatever we could together.”
