It’s a Wrap

Reflecting back on this year, we are filled with gratitude.  As Educators, we pushed ourselves further than ever and as Stylists and Colorists we grew, learned and explored. We met and worked with many great hairstylists along the way from all across the country both at our Academy and in their home salons. With our Directors and Educators traveling across the country, we enjoyed working on the road in such locations as NYC, Seattle, LA, Chicago, Dallas, and Miami.  It’s always fun to see what other hairdressers in our industry are up to and being adaptable to various types of formats. We ran everything from small format private classes to big venue presentations. At our Academy here in SF, we’re offering new courses in 2012. While our popular classics continue to sell out, we feel its important to mix it up and offer new twists for our die hard repeat attendees. We had fun with our creative classes-  tying together cut, color and style compared to our normally departmentalized programs. Next year, we are offering this as a 2-day class which many of attendees have requested. Our enrollment continues to grow and we are so proud of our team and what they have accomplished. We are grateful for all of the attendees that took part in our Academy this past year. Thank you for visiting our beautiful city and sharing our passion for this amazing industry that we are all a part of. See you next year….. Shelley Mohr, Academy Director of Color Amita Moticka, Academy Director of Cutting

Shelley + Amita kicking off an Academy course

Cares, Assistant Academy Director of Color, teaching our Enlighten course

Educators Debi + Yureesh teaching our Equate: Classic Cutting course

new logo

When Andrew talks openly about the amount of time that diPietro Todd has been in business he always says that diPietro Todd is 22 years “young” which sounds so much more accurate with how we feel rather than 22 years “old”. We like to think that diPietro Todd is just getting started and if you’ve seen our new logo it is certainly indicative of these feelings. It is bold, confident and ready to take off in any new direction. As usual, we have a lot going on here at diPietro Todd and we’re really excited about it! We’ve been working tirelessly on the academy to make sure it will assume the position that it deserves in the line up of education in the salon world. Most importantly we are so thrilled we stayed afloat during the down economy. With that being said, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our staff and clients for their much appreciated loyalty.

In respect to the old logo—we’ll never loose the orange. Back in the day it was pretty brave to use orange and I must admit it has served us well.

dinner at the todd’s

Andrew and I had a dinner party for our Partners, Creative Team and Directors of Education to show our appreciation for everything they all do here at diPietro Todd to make this the dynamic salon that it is. Andrew was his most amazing chef self in the kitchen and Shelly Mohr (Academy Director of Color) came to the rescue at the end to make it extra fabulous. It was great to see everyone have such a good time together. Not a lot of talk about work, just good food, fun and friendship. We ended the night with Chris David, our new partner for our Palo Alto salon belting out a song and dance to that old favorite from the 80’s, Human League’s- “The Things That Dreams are Made of.” It couldn’t have been more perfect.

Thank you—Akemi, Winona, Maggie, Dylan, Chris, Amita, Shelly, Dawn, Emily, Stacy, Ali, Aileen and Brittany

All The Best….

inoa + new york

I just got back from a quick one day turn around trip to New York. I was asked by the Public Relations group, Bratskeir and Company, to come do a testimonial for L’Oreal Professionnel’s new premier color line called “INOA”. The upper management at L’Oreal Professionnel says that INOA is to normal permanent hair color what the Iphone is to early archaic cell phones; if that gives you any idea of what the buzz is on this new color line. After 15 years of research and development and 14 patents later, L’Oreal Professionnel was finally ready to launch INOA to the Beauty Industry at large.  INOA has been such a huge success in France and Italy that we Americans have had to wait for a sufficient amount of inventory to do our business for almost 9 months!  The difference between this color line and everything other color line? You name it……..ammonia-free, no odor, no itching/uncomfortable scalp, no color staining on the skin after application, no fade-age from salon visit to salon visit, 100% gray coverage and most importantly the hair is in excellent condition if not better than before the hair was colored. Shelly Mohr, our partner at the diPietro Todd Salons + Academy for Color and also a Portfolio Artist for L’Oreal Professionnel says she has converted 80% of her clients to INOA and they are raving about it. I am honored to say that diPietro Todd is one of only 200 salons in the United States that will be carrying the INOA line. I really love how L’Oreal Professionnel timed the launch of INOA with their 100 year anniversary. For anyone who doesn’t know who invented hair color, we have L’Oreal Professional to thank for that.

Cynthia Rapp

Sad but true, we’ve started the New Year by loosing one of our original partners: Cynthia Rivera Rapp. Cynthia was diPietro Todd’s first color assistant to pass through our training program back in the early 90’s. She worked on the color team downtown for a short while and moved over to our Mill Valley Salon when we first opened and from there she went on to become one of the most gifted, busiest colorists in the industry. After several years we put together a partnership with Cynthia for our Palo Alto location and together we brought that salon to the success it is today. Cynthia put her heart and soul into the Palo Alto salon and everyone who came there could feel it. It was pretty simple—she loved her work and the clients loved her. On top of being amazing at her craft, Cynthia was also a very intuitive woman and took care of her staff to make sure they were happy and well cared for. I had to call her voicemail the other day after she passed just to hear her say one last time: “Remember, you’ve only got today—make it a great day.”

Good(bye) 2009

I might be one of the few people that didn’t hate 2009. I admit it was a rough year but aren’t they all in some way or another? Even after 21 years of experience in the salon world, this year made Andrew and I pay attention to every detail more than ever. It is like the old saying: what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. Early in 2009 I read an article in the Business Section of the San Francisco Chronicle that this recession would mark the survival of the fittest. That really stuck with me—in order to to stay in the game this past year we had to pull out all the stops. If diPietro Todd can open a new salon in a down economy, stay true to our principles of customer service, start up a creative department, expand our academy, and put on Collective V2 (our best show to date), I would say it was a pretty decent year.

Forever Young

Our Christmas party for our dPT staff was amazing thanks to Andrew Todd and Sam Hayes. Planning for this party starts in August and not a detail is spared. This year’s vampire theme, “Forever Young” posed the question: who would you be if you could live forever? Andrew and Sam always choose a unique theme that is inspired by what is happening in pop culture. This year’s party was at Vessel nightclub. The venue was transformed into a dark, candlelit atmosphere perfect for vampires to gather in, complete with faux smoke, manzanita branches, black lights, plasma orbs, and a full moon. Everyone, dressed to the nines, out did themselves coming up with the most unique and creative costumes. It was sort of like a masquerade as it was hard to recognize my own employees. DJ Icon put everyone in the dancing mood and performers from Vau Di Vire Society provided some inspiring entertainment. The best costume awards went out to Chad Robinson and Moises Villa. Check out our party photos and keep in touch with us on facebook.

-Kim Todd

Moises Villa and Chad Robinson

Kim Todd, Sam Hayes and Andrew Todd

The DPT Family

It has always made me crazy when people ask if diPietro Todd is a franchise. It is true, we have 5 locations and 6 business partners so I guess technically that makes dPT a franchise. To me the word franchise denotes a business with no soul or one that is very generic and cold so I looked up the word franchise to get the true meaning. Franchise: “The right or license by a company to an individual or group to market it’s products or service in a specific territory.” I still don’t like the sound of the word or the definition. What Andrew and I have done at diPietro Todd in our 21 years of business is create opportunities for people to grow within our company. We have selected people as business partners who are like-minded in our work ethic and our principals about treating people with respect. We are all on the same page when it comes to maintaining a standard of work that is modern and current while working with our clients to make sure what we select for them is perfectly suitable to their lifestyle. We all also believe in mentoring the next generation of hairdressers. Thank you Cynthia Rapp, Winona Lewis, Shelly Mohr, Amita Moticka, Maggie and Dylan Ponicsan. You’re the best!

See you,
Kim Todd