EXCLUSIVE: The Bergdorf Salon Workers Are Headed to Julien Farel
Julien Farel’s New York flagship Restore Salon and Spa has absorbed 40 employees from Salon Yoshiko, which occupied the penthouse ninth level of Bergdorf Goodman and closed July 3.
Among the 10,000-square-foot salon’s new recruits are Kenji Ishimoto, Luis Perez, Stefanie Francois, William Simon and Farel’s newly appointed color director, Parvin Klein.
More from WWD
“When I found out [Salon Yoshiko] was closing, my first thought was to reach out and see if they were OK — it was a shock,” said Farel, who worked at Bergdorf’s beauty salon himself in 1993 when it was a Fekkai Salon, where he met Klein.
The staff merger took effect Wednesday.
To accommodate the expansion, new sinks and styling stations have been added to Farel’s Loews Regency Hotel flagship, totaling 17 and 38, respectively.
Farel said business of late has exceeded pre-pandemic levels, with 2022 being the salon’s biggest year to date.
“We bounce back slowly by building — not trying to run too fast,” said Farel, who opened a salon in Palm Beach, Florida, last September, and is looking to grow distribution of his namesake hair care line.
Salon Yoshiko opened at Bergdorf’s in 2019, and counted 52 employees at the time of its closure. Before that, the ninth floor salon was run by John Barrett.
A statement provided to WWD in June said, “Yoshiko and Bergdorf Goodman mutually came to the decision to close the salon. There are no immediate plans for the salon space at Bergdorf Goodman.”
Julien Farel Restore & Spa counts Brooke Shields, Olivia Palermo and Uma Thurman among its clientele, and adds Martha Stewart and Hillary Clinton with this staff expansion.
This August, Farel and his team will once again serve as the official hairstylists of the U.S. Open, operating a pop-up for tennis players within the grounds for the 15th consecutive year.
Best of WWD
