BUSINESS AND BEAUTY: STARRING BY TED GIBSON
THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE BI-ANNUAL PRINT ISSUE OF A BOOK OF (A BOOK OF: NOW, SEPTEMBER 2019)
WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY IRVIN RIVERA
Ted Gibson and Jason Backe are revolutionaries reshaping the structure of the beauty industry today. Both renowned hair experts and entrepreneurs founded STARRING, the world’s first ever smart salon in Los Angeles.
The 1,100 square foot space on La Brea Avenue allows clients to experience the power of Amazon’s smart virtual assistant, Alexa. From the door, to the lights, the music, the tablets, to checking in, checking out, booking your appointments, to the coffeemaker, the retail, it’s all smart technology.
There are five semi-private clouds as styling stations where clients can control different shades of ambient light to see their hair color in different situations. Each space is equipped with an Amazon Fire Tablet and Smart Speakers.
In this interview, we chatted with Ted and Jason about their bold move to open another Salon in California, on thriving within the ever changing landscape of the beauty industry today, astrology, and knowing what you want.
PHOTOGRAPHER: IRVIN RIVERA, PHOTO ASST: PHIL LIMPRASERTWONG
What’s your story?
Ted: As a hairdresser for over 30 years I felt like that with the beauty school license I’ve been able to do and accomplish so many really great things. And I’m so blessed and fortunate to have that happened. I have owned salons, I had my own products, I have been a beauty school teacher, I have done covers of magazines, I’ve worked with celebrities, I have done editorials, I have done fashion shows all over the world, and I stopped to pinch myself because with that beauty school license and the things that I’ve been able to accomplish. I’m super excited about being in Los Angeles because I think LA is the place for creatives at the moment. If you have a dream, LA is the place for your dreams to come true. I lived in New York for 20 years and New York is not that any longer. So I ‘m super excited about being here.
Jason: My name is Jason Backe. I am a sidekick to Ted Gibson. He was my teacher in Beauty School and then he dragged me away from my home, my family and my friends to New York City where we opened our first salon in 2003. We had that business for 13 years. During that time we launched a product line that was started at Henri Bendel then went to Saks, then went to Sephora, then went to a thousand doors at Target and it was an amazing experience. We also had a salon at Chevy Chase Maryland, right outside of Washington DC. We had a salon at the W Hotel in Fort Lauderdale. And we decided to end all of that and sold our apartment, sold our house from upstate New York and moved to California where we said we would never ever open a salon ever again.
Ted: Or ever move to California.
Jason: But here we are in California in our new salon.
Ted: It’s quite remarkable. For one, never say never because never is a possibility and that being able to have such an influence in beauty from just being able to create things is just really fantastic.
Tell us about Starring, the world’s first smart salon.
Jason: When we came up with Shooting Star texture meringue, which is part of the Starring hair care line, we wanted to skip the traditional, professional salon product distribution model because we believe that that model is dying as people are shopping more and more online and buying less and less in salons. So we wanted to go direct to consumer and we thought the best way to do that would be through Amazon. So we launched shooting Star Texture meringue in Amazon, and that inspired conversations on what else we can do. And we started talking about having a salon. Just through brainstorming calls with Amazon, we came up with this smart salon concept. Everything from accessing the front door which is secure, to controlling the lights, the music, the tablets, checking in, checking out, booking your appointments, how the floors get vacuumed, the coffeemaker, the retail, it’s all smart technology. We wanted to create an experience that is different than what you would have in a traditional salon setting. We wanted to have as many touch points in technology as we could to reinforce our philosophy about how beauty is ever changing and that it’s time for us to take a look at the traditional salon model and shake it up a little bit. Otherwise, it’s going to become a dinosaur.
How has it been so far?
Jason: So far so good. We have three people that are working with us that are all awesome. We are interviewing new people every week. Slow and steady wins the race. We are finding the right people and taking our time to make sure that we’re building this because everything that we’re doing is sort of an experiment. We’re seeing what’s working. If it’s working we keep going in that direction. If it’s not, we make a shift. And one of the fun things about being an entrepreneur is that we’re in a speedboat and we can change directions really quickly. Whereas a lot of manufacturers in our industry are more like a cruise ship- for them to change direction, it takes 500 people to make a decision and it takes a year to get something done. We can implement something one day, try it for a week and decide we don’t like it and change it the next week. It’s fun to do that. So the experiment we’re having right now is figuring out how this model is gonna thrive.
For you, what is NOW?
Ted: Now means Never Over Watching. I feel like I’m in the stage in my life where I feel like I don’t have to watch everything.
Jason: That makes sense. So one of the things about this business that we have is that the other companies that we’ve had were sort of in charge of us and in this company we’re gonna be the boss of us. So we have a completely different approach. So that’s kind of like what “now” is. When we decided to close our company in New York City, one of the things we recognized was that “kids” or people coming out of beauty school today want something very different than they did 20 years ago. Twenty years ago, someone coming out of beauty school had to work in a big name salon in order to have any kind of credibility to be able to build the clientele. Today, the same “kid” with that kind of hustle can be really successful with just instagram. Social media and social networking and doesn’t necessarily need big names to achieve that level of success. Also, we’re in era of slashes. Say, I’m a haircolorist, I’m a business owner, a public speaker and a mentor. In our culture right now, people want to have their fingers in a whole bunch of different pots to keep their life exciting and stimulating. The day of having one 9-5 job that you have for like 15-20 years is over. Now you go into an interview and if you have the same job for 25 years, the person interviewing may think “What value you are to me if you’ve only done one thing for 25 years.” Where now, I have this experience, I have this experience, and I have this experience and I can bring all of these experiences to the table to help your organization grow. We wanted to create something of the NOW that encourages people to be able to participate in all of these aspects of our culture of beauty.
Ted: In addition to what Jason had said, as a hairdresser for such a long period of time, us wanting to create this brand- Starring, it’s not Beverly Hills, it’s not West Hollywood, it’s La Brea. For us, it means a new thought in such a way that beauty, the way that fashion, the way of conceptualizing business and how to make a stamp in the world and see what that looks like for the future and I think that we’re doing that. It’s very exciting for us to see it in such a short period of time, creating our own kind of feeling in Los Angeles.
If you were a book, what book would you be and why?
Ted: My book would be about Sex.
Jason: Mine would be Starfucker Magazine. (laughs)
Ted: It would be about sex and astrology. I really believe with people’s signs, where they’re born, how they’re born, the time, the day; it really affects who they are as individuals. Starring is not only about starring in your own world, it’s Starring hair, Starring me, or Starring you. Starring has its own astrological sign. It was important for me and Jason to really figure out what the baby of Starring would be so I consulted my astrologer and asked her when would be the best time that Starring should be launched. She was born April 10th at 10:25am in the morning in Hollywood. And the reason why is that she’s a Taurus, with Cancer rising, and that she would be full-figured and that she would have hips, and that she would want to be an individual and that she would want something that is catered specifically for her and I feel like that’s the girls that I work with. All the girls that I work with from Angelina Jolie, to Anne Hathaway, to Gabrielle Union, to Zoe Saldana, to Lupita Nyong’o, Debra Messing, Sandra Oh, Brie Larson. I mentioned those names because that is the truth and I worked really hard in order to have that influence.
People ask me all the time what was your biggest moment? How did you become this celebrity hairdresser and a fashion hairdresser? For me just like how I would say to everyone- the key is in knowing what it is that you want. Once you know what it is that you want, why wouldn’t the gods give it to you? It’s about really knowing what it is and not floundering around or waiting for someone to do it for you and knowing that everything is for your good.