Since childhood I have been fascinated by the dynamics of hair, its luster and shine. I remember how much I wanted to feel it in my hands, to touch it. I loved looking at the beautiful well-coiffed hair without looking away for a long time.
Not far from my house there was a salon, and as I passed by I often looked in the window, watching the masters at work. How important the work of a hairdresser seemed to me then! But for some reason I couldn’t even imagine to become a hairdresser at that time. And only after a few years, my passion became professional.
One day, having received a small sum of money from my father for my work as his assistant, I went to the hairdresser’s to have a fashionable haircut, and this trip appeared to be fatal for me. While I was being cut, I observed the work of a young wizard. The guy skillfully mastered the instrument that inspired me greatly. I could not restrain myself, I would like to take the scissors in my hands and cut someone immediately. I could hardly keep in.
Having been cut by the master, I went to the store to spend the remaining money for a hair drier, some combs and brushes and scissors (the most primitive, of course). As soon as I bought my first tools, immediately I ran to a friend and classmate of mine and offered him a haircut, lying that my friend had taught me how to cut. And he agreed! Inspiration was so great that I coped with the task in two hours, and since then I have never parted with the tool again. Seeing my friend, my classmates also wanted such a haircut and started asking me to cut them. But later it was hard for me to cut; I had a lot of questions, difficulties and obstacles. I always idealized the imaginary result and needed to acquire technical skills to obtain it. I began to search for hairdressers’ courses where I could learn in a short time, not knowing that I would have to study almost all my life. Courses cost very expensive for our family. I remembered that figure forever – 5857 rubles and 28 kopecks. And 24 years have passed! At that moment it was my big dream, which was destined to happen. I enrolled in the course, and after 3 months I became a barber. And a complex at that time employment question was in front of me. In those post-Soviet years, there were not so many salons, and the number of those wishing to get to work exceeded the number of the hairdressers’ in Kiev; moreover there were problems with any earnings in the 90ies. I was only 15 years old, and I did not understand what obstacles might lie in wait for me, and I felt free to make decisions, not relying on a negative result. So I went to salons and suggested my candidate for the position of an apprentice or an assistant. I must say, in many salons I was greeted with disdain. But I still did not stop. Finally, I was taken to the practice in a salon. Learning was very hard, but due to my enjoyment working as a barber, I could easily go through a grueling practice. Many technical methods and responsibility scared me, but my enthusiasm to the customer, and the winning desire resulted in my official being enlisted to work a month and a half later – on the 19th of April, 1993 at the age of 16 years old. I felt like the happiest person on Earth.
But I always wanted to do more: I often didn’t like the results of my work, and all the time I was looking for answers to lots of my questions. This led me to Dyudenko salon (Kiev), where I armed myself with higher knowledge. I attended Vyacheslav Dyudenko’s master classes on which I discovered the best facets of my profession. Simultaneously, I worked hard, honing the knowledge gained. Several years passed, and that knowledge was not enough as well. Once I came across Dessange (a world famous hairdresser) magazine, and I set myself the task – in whatever was to visit the school in Paris. If you really dream that dream will certainly come true. In 2000, I visited Jacques Dessange School in Paris. In 2001, at the age of 24 years old I opened my first small salon.
Working in my own salon, I attended many international exhibitions in different countries, Vidal Sassoon Academy in London, and, imagine, could not create what was intended, could not still master hair! This outlook didn’t suit me.
But I didn’t stop in my search for the ideal. I was interested in all aspects of hairdressing: men's haircuts, women's evening hairstyles – I tried to examine each area.
In search of myself and my technique, I met many brilliant artists and tried to learn unique techniques from each of them, and there was a great set. Thus, at training courses, I met superlative Maria Mikhailovna Novitska, a teacher, a master of industrial training in hairdressing and a virtuosa of evening hairstyles, who graduated many generations of the Academy of beauty arts.
Inside, I worked with many interesting people, discovering a profession more broadly, became interested in the history of fashion, image and style, attended seminars of Alexander Vasiliev, read a lot about the history of fashion – this has become my hobby. In 2008 I returned to Ukraine to build the Eden of hairdressing art :).