jay mahmood

Vidal Sassoon Schoolship Tour of Japan

The Vidal Sassoon Schoolship is a group of the top 30 hairdressing colleges in Japan, who throughout the year come to the Sassoon academies in London and a senior member of the Sassoon education team visits each school once a year as part of a 3 month tour of Japan. The tour involves first traveling all over Japan and checking over 4000 haircuts in the process, eventually picking 460 finalists who come together later in the year for the annual Vidal Sassoon Student Cut Contest which has been held in Tokyo for the last 12 years.

In 2008, still aged 23 I became the youngest person to complete this tour, and the Student Cut Contest in Tokyo later that year. It was a tremendous honor to be given such a great responsibility of not only picking the 460 finalists but also to represent Vidal Sassoon in Japan on the 10th anniversary of the Student Cut Contest on stage in front of 8000 people!

I had the time of my life, staying in the best hotels, eating at the finest restaurants, flying business class every few days not to mention the TV and magazine interviews along the way!

what an amazing journey....

the cut contest in tokyo- the second part of the trip

I am now joined by other members of the Sassoon team for the first time, including International Creative Director of Sassoon, Mark Hayes.

This is probably one of the hardest events to prepare for due to the amount of work needed to be done in the given time.

This visit is one week long. In that time we must model hunt in the streets of Tokyo to find the show models! (no pressure!)

We then hold a model call and pick from the models that were scouted. We then start to cut and colour not only the models that that we found, but the presentation models that flew out to Tokyo with us!

The day itself is the most exhausting and impossible sounding schedule ever!!!! As if the prep leading up to the day didn't kill you!

-Meet in the hotel lobby and depart at 6am

( 1 hour coach journey)

-Arrive at the venue 7am

-Start to prep ALL the models before the event opens at 9am

-Start checking 460 haircuts with 30seconds max per model

-After checking 230 I'm blind, seriously confused and looking forward to a short break and a glass of water

-NO CHANCE! The next 230 are ready to be checked!

-That's all 460 I chose in THREE MONTHS, one after the other with no break!!!

-We go backstage and decide on the top 20.

-Now, we must do a show!

-Outfit change!