Rainbow Rooms International celebrates 45 years in Glasgow

We speak to David Nicholson from Rainbow Rooms Int.

Transcript

00:00Well, the company was started by Alan Stewart, who's still actively involved in the company,

00:07and the first salon was in Buchanan Street, and then the second one opened on the other side of

00:12the square. That's when I joined the company, so it had already been around for eight years

00:18before I started, and I've been with the company since 1987, and I opened this salon here in 1993,

00:26so that's 31, just over 31 years I've been here. There's been lots of changes over the years,

00:32just trends change, fashions, how hairdressing is perceived, but here's something people are

00:40always going to want to look good and feel good, and as long as your focus is on craft,

00:45and just making sure that, you know, the accuracy and the work is there, and consistency, and just

00:50being authentic, and just doing what you believe is the right thing to do. So none of these things

00:55have ever changed over all the years, and certainly over the last five years, that's all we've been

01:00able to do throughout Covid, pandemics, is just the quality of the work. If the work is beautiful,

01:06then why would somebody not come back? The intention was always just to make a difference,

01:12you know, the job is about making people look good and feel good,

01:17and as long as that's where your focus is, then that's where you'll get your results.

01:22You know, the company has grown over the years, but it's been very organic. Everybody that is a

01:27franchisee of all the salons we have, they grew up with the company, you know, many of the directors

01:34started off as a Saturday sort of job, and then came up through the apprenticeship, through the

01:41whole sort of structure of stylists, senior stylists, and so on, and so on, and then start

01:47getting involved in managing. So there's never really been a kind of a long-term plan that we're

01:54going to open one salon this year, two next year. It's all about people, it's about developing people.