London Celebrity Hairdresser Larry King’s Business Is Growing Quickly
LONDON — Celebrity hairdresser Larry King is in growth mode, with a new salon in London’s Marylebone.
The new space in Marylebone is near the constantly-packed Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecote restaurant and Cavendish Square Gardens, where homes can cost multimillions of pounds.
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It’s a neighborhood fit for King’s clientele of celebrities, artists and high-earners who are based in the U.S. and the U.K., and include Jared Leto, Gigi Hadid, Natalie Portman, Courtney Love, Karlie Kloss, Sienna Miller, Jack Fox and Tom Holland.
The Marylebone salon is King’s largest to date, occupying 2,800 square feet across two floors. It has a Western saloon interior with rustic wooden floors and framed illustrations and photographs of cowboys.
The basement floor offers more discreet appointments for high-profile clients and a wet bar that can shake up a mean martini, or an oat flat white.
The Marylebone site completes a trifecta for King who also has salons in Notting Hill and South Kensington.
The brand said the salon business has “proved a great success, with an average turnover growth year-on-year of 20 percent.”
King’s business also extends to an eponymous hair care line, which includes styling products, shampoos, conditioners and hair accessories.
Investors in the business include Will Shu, the chief executive officer of Deliveroo; influencer Victoria Magrath from In the Frow, and British model David Gandy.
“Investors become part of the Larry King family, enjoying full business transparency as their shares grow in value, attending team and annual events and access to our award-winning services and products,” said Laura Amor-King, director of the business in a joint interview with her husband, Larry.
Gandy, who would regularly ask King to do his hair when he was modeling full time, said after working with King for 15 years, it was a no-brainer to invest in King’s brand.
“Being a founder of a brand is one of the hardest things you can do, and Larry embodies the three most important attributes you need, which are determination, drive and work ethic. For me it’s about investing in the founder more than the concept or idea,” he said.
Gandy said the investment was an easy one to make. “Customers are loyal to their stylist or colorist [more than to] the salon, so it’s a matter of building an incredible team around the concept. Larry had done this, including his incredibly talented wife who acts as a creative director to the brand.”
King, who was born in Cambridge, England, started his career in hairdressing at the age of 17 with his first job at Toni&Guy.
He was later transferred to the chain’s Marylebone store, where he met the woman who would become his wife. The two have been together for 25 years and married for 17.
King still has fond memories of Cambridge and the Toni & Guy store he worked in, describing it as a formative part of his hairdressing career.
“I still go back a lot and they’ve still got people there who trained me. I’ve got this nostalgic thing in me that I’d like to go back and even open a salon in Cambridge at some point,” he said.
After Toni & Guy, King went to work with Lee Stafford and Aveda.
He built his business on more than just hairdressing talent. He’s social, charming and, at 6 feet, 4 inches, hard to miss in his trademark skinny jeans and fedora.
He can even be mistaken for a blue-eyed Jeff Goldblum thanks to his height and thick silver locks.
It was through the encouragement of his clients that he opened his first salon in 2017, but was Amor-King, a former lingerie designer, who’s been his chief motivator.
In 2015, she suggested he start a blog called Larry’s World, where he could document his day-to-day, working on fashion shows or photo shoots.
The blog was a success, and the husband and wife put their heads together to do some more strategizing. In 2016 they came up with a business plan for a salon, with Amor-King designing the branding and running the behind-the-scenes operations.
Redken came on as a partner for King’s first salon and remains a collaborator alongside Dyson. King is an ambassador for the latter, and regularly cuts James Dyson’s hair.
King calls his salons his number-one priority and tries to spread his time between the three locations during the week.
He started off with a staff of 13 people and now has 50 employees, who have become stars in their own right. They include Annie Redman, the go-to for cool blunt bobs and choppy textured hairstyles, and Harriet Muldoon who has been dubbed the Queen of Blond, with clients including Poppy Delevingne, Mia Regan and Pixie Lott.
“We also want to look at supporting the team as they grow,” King said.
“They might want to go into salons [themselves] or open a franchise, such as Harriet Muldoon for Larry King. I don’t want people to feel like they’ve got nowhere to go. I want there to be growth within the company constantly, and for lots of people,” he added.
King’s own dreams are far from over. His next desire is to open a salon in New York, and he confirmed that he’s in talks about taking his hair care line to a major retailer.
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