Fashion Industry Forum

Years ago, I had a student who would come in each week with a hairstyle crazier than the last. His hair was blue, then it was purple. He had a Mohawk. Then he had a reverse Mohawk. He had his head shaved except a square right in the middle. I asked him one day what his mother thought about all of his hair styles. He said, "My mom does my hair for me. She owns a beauty salon."

His mom was just like every other 'soccer mom' in the neighborhood, except maybe a little bit sweeter and I was just floored. Remember, this was a long time ago when a blue Reverse Mohawk was pretty outrageous. So, I asked her about it and her answer made so much sense I determined to remember it when my children were older. She said,

"My son is an honor roll student. He's a good athlete and he plays in a band. He's respectful to me and his father and gets along as well with his younger brothers as one could reasonably expect from a teenager. He doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, if he wants to rebel by dyeing his hair and cutting it in some weird shape and that's the worst thing he does, I can deal with that."

She was clearly right. Everyone eventually got used to her son coming in with one weird hairstyle after another. One day he was just being a bit of a jerk, and he was normally a good kid. Finally, one of the other instructors asked him what the hell was wrong with him and he said, quite upset, "I dyed my hair purple and no one even noticed!"

In short, I think most smart teachers look past the color of the hair to the person.