THE MR ALEX STORY | Mr Alex Hairdressing Foundation

OUR STORY

Our organisation was started in memory of Alex Lilly who was a mature student when he embarked on his dream career of becoming a hairdresser at the age of 33 years old. Alex had always wanted to be a hairdresser but his strict father advised him to choose a “proper career”.

On leaving school, he therefore went into engineering. After many years he decided to follow his dream so he quit engineering and embarked on a hairdressing career as a mature student. Being the oldest student in a class of teenagers, they called him “Mr Alex”, hence the name was born. Alex graduated from City and East London College in 1980 with honours and went on to open a salon in Brixton, South London. The original salon was opened on the day of the 1^st Brixton riots in April 1981.

A GROWING BUSINESS

The salon’s clientele quickly grew and the premises next door was taken over to extend the new salon into it. The new salon opened in April 1984, uncannily on the day of the 2^nd Brixton riot. The extended Salon was now 2,500 sq feet and included a beauty room, staff room, laundry room, dispensary, consulting room, office and snack bar. Future plans included an additional 2,000 sq foot area for gym, sauna and spa areas, which were unfortunately never developed. Alex’s time spent in engineering had not been wasted since some of the skills he had learned there were brought into the hairdressing field.

Alex was in great demand for his specialty which was afro hair including scalp analysis, trichology, colouring, chemicals and precision cutting. Clients traveled to his salon from as far as Liverpool, Manchester and Belgium and he also had well known musicians amongst his clientele.

As well as his salon work, Alex taught at various colleges, appeared on stage at trade shows demonstrating products and doing poster photo shoots for some of the major hair companies as well as organising hair and fashion shows.

The picture shows the salon designed by Audley English Associates Architect.

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A FITTING LEGACY

In 1990 Alex moved to new premises in Streatham High Road and his new salon was named Personal Touch Hair and Beauty, in order to emphasize the personalisation of the client’s individual salon experience no matter which stylist they had.

Unfortunately in February 1996 Alex was diagnosed with Leukemia and despite many efforts by the medical team at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton, Surrey, they were unable to find a match for him to enable him to have a bone marrow transplant.

The salon embarked on blood drives, and sponsored walks to raise leukemia awareness, funds and blood donors for the Royal Marsden Hospital, the Anthony Bone Marrow Trust and the Daniel DeGayle Leukemia Fund. Despite all of this, Alex passed away in July 1997 at the age of 49 years old.

It was decided by Alex’s family that since he had such a passion for hairdressing, was involved in educating others and one of his motto’s was “Education is Key” it would be fitting in his memory to start a Foundation to assist others to fulfill their dreams and ambitions.

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