Hadiiya Barbel's hairstyling and expertly crafted wigs have been seen on Mya, Iman, Pepa, Ciara, Star Jones, Keri Hilson, Ashanti, Taraji Henson, Angela Bassett, and many more fashionable celebrities. She is a self-made woman of enigmatic personality, who has earned and cultivated a prestigious reputation among some of Hollywood's elite as the stylist to see. Barbel is a true rebel at heart, and her creative beginnings and deep-seated personal belief of seeing beauty in all forms allows a greater understanding that her love for what she does goes much deeper than just hair, and how it transformed this vivacious mother of three outlooks on life.
In her formative years, Barbel, a Bronx New York native, sought to achieve a career in fashion as a designer. Dutifully creative, her visions often included the full profile of her subjects, and the attraction to the detail of hairstyling gracefully began to engulf her approach to fashion design. Recognizing a burgeoning talent, her teachers and advisors at High School of Fashion Industries (HSFI) provided the young student with her first major challenge; to create all of the hairstyles for the various school shows. She embraced the opportunity to showcase her newly discovered talent, and this early taste of success convinced Barbel that her imaginative flair was best used to pursue a career in the hair industry.
She went to work at a Time Salon in Brooklyn, under the tutelage of her mentor Heather OKeefe. Barbel trained and learned O’Keefe’s high standards, and in return OKeefe provided the early foundation for Barbel to achieve a goal in her long-range vision, one which has come true to have a premier salon destination called The Glamour Suite, located in the Soho District of New York City.
A Hadiiya Barbel hairstyle is influenced by wild, soulful and hip styles of the 60s and 70s, but these iconic looks take on a completely future-forward flair with her no-holds-barred, radically different approach to cutting and styling.
A Hadiiya Barbel style is unmistakably her own, and for all the work that goes into it, she describes it as effortless beauty, where the styles are done, yet undone, she says. These styles are epitome of cool, as evidenced by her specialty in creating shapes, these are individualized visions for her clientele that are created to perfectly flatter their features, their lifestyles, their way of being. A style by Hadiiya Barbel is guaranteed to turn heads.
How she spends the private hours of her life are equally as important to her and provide the balance for her to create and maintain her personal brand. Barbel is an avid fitness buff who is an extremely health conscious person. She works out, rides her beloved bicycles and nurtures a happy home for her three children. Barbel believes that being fit, healthy and treasuring her family’s happiness is the key to her ongoing success.
