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Friday, February 21, 2025

Barbershop hopes to grow fresh talent with in-house academy

by

Shane Superville
24 days ago
20250128

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Peo­ple in­ter­est­ed in learn­ing the es­sen­tials of bar­ber­ing and hair­styling can now look to­ward an­oth­er av­enue to learn the trade with the open­ing of the Mas­ter of Fades Bar­ber Acad­e­my in Val­sayn.

The branch is the sec­ond lo­ca­tion of the Mas­ter of Fades brand which has its first out­let at The Falls, West Mall.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the of­fi­cial open­ing of the sec­ond out­let at Val­park Plaza, on Sun­day, own­er and founder Faisal Mo­hammed said the newest lo­ca­tion was a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in the brand’s his­to­ry as it of­fered the next gen­er­a­tion of styl­ists an op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn from his staff, who he con­sid­ers to be among the best in the in­dus­try.

But apart from ex­pand­ing their cus­tomer base fur­ther east­wards, Mo­hammed said the lat­est branch was a tes­ta­ment to the con­tin­ued sup­port from fam­i­ly, friends, clients and em­ploy­ees. It was al­so a sym­bol of years of hard work and ded­i­ca­tion to his craft.

Mo­hammed opened his first bar­ber­shop in El So­cor­ro in 1993 and has ex­pe­ri­enced sev­er­al rob­beries and the loss of em­ploy­ees over the years, but was proud of the work ac­com­plished even in the face of these chal­lenges.

He said this lat­est ini­tia­tive was his way of help­ing grow the pool of ac­cred­it­ed, skilled bar­bers lo­cal­ly.

“The ob­jec­tive is for those who don’t have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to go to the US, they can come right here to the sa­lon in Trinidad at the Mas­ter of Fades Acad­e­my in Val­park.

“They can do one-day work­shops, even some­one who’s just look­ing for a new ca­reer path, they can join a one-day sem­i­nar that de­liv­ers a lot of in­sight on bar­ber­ing and from there you can de­cide if you want to make this a ca­reer and we can help you grow in that field.”

He said he was ea­ger to im­part years of knowl­edge to young­sters and those ready to try a new ca­reer path.

Mo­hammed opened the West Mall branch of his sa­lon dur­ing the height of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. He said while he was met with some ap­pre­hen­sion from friends, he be­lieved the brand could thrive even in the midst of the eco­nom­ic dif­fi­cul­ties at that time.

He said his key to suc­cess has been in cre­at­ing an en­vi­ron­ment where all peo­ple were wel­come and ap­pre­ci­at­ed.

“Our branch is very fam­i­ly-ori­ent­ed, they feel that ap­pre­ci­a­tion when they vis­it us and I just want­ed it to ex­pand that to Val­park.”

Mo­hammed al­so teased his in­ter­est in open­ing oth­er branch­es across the Caribbean, with Guyana be­ing a pos­si­bil­i­ty. How­ev­er, he said he in­tend­ed to fo­cus on grow­ing the brand lo­cal­ly and train­ing fu­ture bar­bers be­fore ven­tur­ing out­side Trinidad and To­ba­go.


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