Dream Workplaces: Beautifully Eclectic

Hairdresser Shane Boyd invited us into his hair salon, which?offers a very?experience than other more pedestrian salons.?The Natural Cut is filled with treasures accumulated?over 20 years, from auction house finds to gifts from friends and family?(the football table, for instance, was given to Boyd’s colleague Oliver on his wedding day). The fireplace mantel and window sills’showcase a wonderful?collection of odds and ends, like a’miniature ship given’to?Shane by his wife. This?workspace is a beautifully eclectic and full of character.

It’s a hair salon, but not as you know it. When Shane Boyd established his specialist hairdressers, The Natural Cut, 20 years ago, he was determined to offer clients an alternative to the sterile, pedestrian salons that populate the high street. ?I wanted to generate a more relaxed feel, to create a parlour- like space that was less formal and would put clients at ease,? he explains. With this in mind, he doggedly walked the streets of Dublin on several wintry evenings, hunting down a first-floor space (?I never felt I had to conform to a ground-floor shop front?) with large French-style windows that looked out onto a busy urban street.

Two decades later, he continues to work from his Wicklow Street studio, which the father of three has made wholly his own by populating it with a multitude of old curiosities as well as beautiful artwork. ?I’ve always been drawn to good design,? explains the Northern Ireland native. ?An object doesn’t have to be a traditional piece of art or sculpture to have worth and to be admired.?

Boyd frequently visits the weekly Thursday auction at local house Herman & Wilkinson in Rathmines to add to his eclectic d?cor, while most of the artwork is bought at final-year college shows. He describes his aesthetic as colourful and quirky. The peacock blue and crimson walls and the well-worn wide boards on the floor have a cocooning effect, making the space, indeed, feel like a welcoming living room; the 1950s-style Belmont barber’s chair takes pride of place by the original fireplace, as your father’s reading chair might at home.

Boyd’s love of good design extends to his clothes, and he revels in the finer details, such as buttonholes and lapels. He avoids traditional menswear in predictable shades of grey and black, and embraces colour with the same proficiency as he has in his wonderfully unique workspace. thenaturalcut.ie

Photographs by Nathalie Marquez Courtney

This article was originally published in the November issue of IMAGE Magazine.