Hairdresser’s salon on Aškerčeva Street in Ljubljana

The client approached the project with the ambitious idea of fitting out a new hairdressing salon in the centre of Ljubljana in just five months, from May to the end of September. Planning was fast, and wallcoverings were chosen before the functional design was finalised. It was also quickly decided that there was no time to sand the black lacquered parquet to restore its original colour and texture.

In a normal hairdressing salon, the hairdresser cuts the client’s hair partly from the back and partly from the side. The client sits in a chair, usually looking into a mirror on the wall. The customer’s position is distinctly passive, like an object strung along a service wall. With the design of the lounge, we wanted to move the customer to the centre of the space, to move them away from the edge and allow them to play an active role in the space. As a result, new free-standing hairdressing mirrors had to be “invented” and the perimeter had to be relieved of contact with the chairs.

The result is a relaxed composition of three mirrors floating in space, cross-linked with the waiting area, the washing area and the cashier’s counter.

Since the wallpaper was chosen at the very beginning of the project, and the walls were later used for other less attractive content, we wallpapered the ceiling and the central wall with a more noble wallpaper. The Baroque motif of wallpaper has been post-modernised to cut-outs in mirrors and sliding shades. By reducing the colours to light and dark, but at the same time strengthening the shapes and patterns, we neutralised the original extremely aggressive black floor surface.

Since there was simply no time for second thoughts, concerns or compromises during the design and execution process, the shapes and patterns, which were quite uncharacteristic for our office, were completely unleashed and finally merged into an aesthetically complete, artistically specific, yet highly sophisticated work.

Authors of the project: BLENKUŠ Matej; FLORIJANČIČ Miloš