Zuhair Tahan

Clothes change. Hair stays. It is the one piece you never take off, and it says who you are before you do.

Zuhair came to hair from the outside in. During the three piece revival he was cutting and styling suits alongside a career in finance, and the more people he dressed, the clearer the gap became: a finished look, undone by the one piece sitting at the top of it. On a music video set in Kuala Lumpur, covering hair as well as wardrobe, he stopped dressing around the problem and started solving it.

He taught himself to fade online, then went for the fundamentals: Sassoon Academy for scissor work, and a year at Behind The Chair Academy under Matty Conrad and Kevin Luchmun.

Four years in Kuala Lumpur and four in Dubai followed, cutting at Chaps & Co and chosen for brand events with BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Jägermeister and the W Hotel. A finalist for Barber of the Year GCC. An ambassador for the British Barbers’ Association in the UAE. Two years as Wahl’s educator across the Middle East and Africa, on stage at Beautyworld Middle East and teaching through Nigeria and Ghana.

Fashion never left the work. Dubai Fashion Week and Arab Fashion Week, press kits, red carpets, the VVIP grooming team for the opening of One&Only One Za’abeel, and theatre, including Dracula for shake & stir theatre co.

His work has returned to where it started: hair for fashion, runway and screen, where the cut serves the character and the clothes rather than competing with them.