Hey, Look Us Over
What you hold in your hands is a completely revamped American Salon. Let’s just say it’s been a labor of love that we’ve all been working on for months. You’ll find brand new departments, including In Brief (a list of what’s on our radar each month), The Craft (where art meets commerce) and Better Business (ideas to inspire success). Off Ramp, which you’ll find on the last page, is your cue to exit. We hope it will bring a smile to your face or just give you something to think about until next month. We’ve also come up with a new tagline: Your Story Told Here. Story is powerful, and each of us has one. We started telling stories soon after I became editor in chief, and the response has been overwhelming. In April we published a story about Paul Mitchell, who died 26 years ago. A German distributor loved it so much he asked if he could translate it into German and publish it in his newsletter. Last January, while I was having dinner with Beth Minardi in New York City, she mentioned a colorist named Rudy Lynn, who she learned about when his niece posted a message on her Facebook page. Arguably one of the first celebrity colorists, he worked for Ruth Reti in New York City (he’s 93 now) and included singer Patti Page and Marilyn Monroe among his clients. Contributing Editor Karen Ford tracked him down and told his story in our May issue. In June we remembered John Sahag, who Edward Tricomi called the “mad professor of hair.” In this issue I finally get to tell the story of the Venti brothers, a family of barbers whose father left Sicily in 1905 in pursuit of the American dream. Luigi, who is 93, still cuts hair at a barbershop in Tarzana, California, every other Saturday. He and his brother John, who’s 74, put together an act that consists of jokes they “borrowed” from Henny Youngman (if you have to ask, just Google him). American Salon has been telling stories—your story—for almost 140 years, and we have no intention of stopping now. If you haven’t visited our new website, you might want to do so when you finish this issue because you’ll find lots of stories there as well from artists like Ted Gibson, Ruth Roche, Sonya Dove and Stephen Moody. There’s so much more to discover, but I’ll let you find out for yourself. See you next month. —Marianne Dougherty, editor in chief, [email protected]