Modern Salon - December 2007 - (Page 14)

NOTEBOOK Beneath the surface T his issue on giving back celebrates you. Hairdressers are the most generous people in the world. You give your time, money and heart to your clients and your community. You open yourselves to personal appeals, even allowing yourselves to be hurt, yet you pick up and give it all again the next day. I can’t think of a better way to illustrate this extraordinary courage than to tell the story of Graham Webb. I met Graham in the 1980s, when he was a successful platform artist and the owner of a chain of salons in the U.K. He told me he came from a disadvantaged background, but when I looked at his Savile Row suits, the beautiful Tudor house he and wife Mandy were restoring in Kent, his booming salons, I thought, “Well, couldn’t have been that bad.” But it was, and worse. Through his rise as a “brand” with Graham Webb products and academy, to his work as an international ambassador for the company after P&G acquired it, Graham harbored a secret: He suffered from handicaps associated with a congenital defect of the spinal cord, spina bifida. The condition twisted his feet, left him often incontinent, bruised him with chronic pain. In adult life, his stylish suits and bespoke shoes hid the humiliation he’d experienced in his slum school, where his teachers wrote him off as an utter failure. In an industry where appearances mean so much, Graham became an enormous success. Ironically enough, it was a series of surgeries in the past few years that solved both his orthopedic and bladder problems which prompted him to go public with his story. He wrote a biography, Out of the Bottle, detailing his struggles, and now tours the world raising funds and awareness to fight the disease and support its sufferers, especially those in their teens, in living normal lives. I heard one of his speeches recently in Chicago at a benefit for the Spina Bifida Association of Illinois. Graham was very frank about how the condition shaped his life, but his message was far from downbeat. “Define yourself in your own way,” he urged the audience. “Create your own joy and happiness. Dreams come a size too big to allow us to grow into them.” To face the negative with a brave heart, to share yourself so others can learn, to be the hand that lifts—that’s what Graham preaches, and that to me is what hairdressers are all about. It is my honor to work with and for you. n Mary Atherton Editor in Chief CLICK! For more on Graham Webb’s book and spina biﬁda, go to modernsalon.com 14 DECEMBER 2007 www.modernsalon.com http://www.itechproducts.com http://www.itechproducts.com http://www.modernsalon.com http://www.modernsalon.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Modern Salon - December 2007

Modern Salon - December 2007 Contents Behind the Cover Notebook @Modernsalon.com Contributors New-Now-Next Modern Portfolio Modern Reports Adding Up to the Future Giving Back: Inner Beauty, Outer Glow Short and Sweet Modern Update The Goods Personal Style

Modern Salon - December 2007

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