How I started working with wigs

Let me share my story as an apprentice hairdresser and how I got started with wigs.
My family grew up on the Central Coast of NSW. It is approximately a 90-minute drive north of Sydney. It’s a beautiful area with beaches and lakes and ignorant bogans, which is like an Australian redneck. Although I wasn’t “out”, I was born out, and those people hated my story. Because I couldn’t bear the bullying, I quit school. Then I found my way into hairdressing, a job specifically for 16-year-olds with no experience in the real world. I knew this was where I belong.

I suddenly became famous for being amazing. After years of feeling miserable at school and surrounded by dickheads, I found my tribe and was happy. I was naturally gifted in hair. Everyone around me knew that I was special because I “got it”. I could do the task on my own, even though I had to be shown it once.

A four-year apprenticeship in Australia is made up of one day per week at Technical And Further Education (TAFE) and four years of hard work. A wonderful teacher from TAFE was a great mentor. She had been a hairdresser since the 1960s and saw my potential and nurtured it. My class was accustomed to blow-drying, so no one was interested in “old-fashioned” techniques such as setting and pin curling, teasing, and barrel curling. But that was all I was interested in. My teacher was kind enough to take me aside and show me more than any other students. It was the beginning of my big, beautiful hair.

My first teacher was a barber who taught me basic men’s cutting. But it was so boring! The basics were so simple that we didn’t even have a basin. It was so basic that we didn’t even have a basin!

I applied for a job at a suburban salon one hour from Sydney. My boss, also called Ben, was the most amazing woman I knew. She was cool and hardworking, my god. She was a hairdresser through the ’60s to the ’80s and even into the ’90s. She taught me all the techniques I love, and I learned most of my knowledge from her. Roxy, her daughter, and I are still good friends. I found a picture of Roxy and me when we were 17 years old at our Christmas party.

My apprenticeship was a struggle for me. I made little but loved the education that I received. Although I enjoyed doing the little things like perming and styling hair, I knew I wanted to do more than salon work. I wanted to be a theatre worker and do all the wonderful things you can’t do in a client-based salon.

After 4 years, I was finally able to complete my apprenticeship and become a licensed hairdresser. I continued to work in a salon for 9 more months, but I realized I was not happy there. I felt trapped by my appointments and couldn’t call in sick to avoid disappointing my clients. I also started to do drag by this point – but that’s another story!

Looking for a new lifestyle that would allow me to travel the world as a woman, my salon job was terminated, and I began working at the House of Priscilla. Chelsea Bun is a fantastic drag shop on Oxford St. Even though I was only there for 3 months; it was one of the most miserable shop boys you have ever seen. People started asking me to style their hair. I’d never styled a wig before.

The Individual Wig, a high-end wig shop just down the street, offered me a job. I accepted it. I learned all there was about high-quality synthetic wigs. This was before mass-produced lace fronts, so everything was very hard fronted. However, I was well aware of lace fronts and wanted one. My wig collection was expanding, and I became obsessed with finding the best wigs. My boss discovered a Chinese contact who made “made-to-measure” human hair lace front wigs… that was the start of the 15 years to come.