June 2023
Month 20xx
Elizabeth Sargeant and Madison Schuliakewich
Charmaine Gooden
Carol Martin
Highlights
If life had gone according to plan, Adrian Carew would have spent his career on airport runways instead of fashion runways.
When he left Barbados for Toronto in 1989, aviation, not hairstyling, was his dream. Hair was simply a skill he had inherited from growing up around his mother’s salon, June’s Beauty Box, and one he thought might pay the bills while he figured out his future.
Instead, that backup plan became the foundation of an international career that has seen him style celebrities, create editorial work for Vogue Italia, Vanity Fair, L’Officiel Australia and Elle Canada, and become one of Canada’s most respected fashion hairstylists.
His success didn’t happen by chance. Working in an industry where Black hairstylists have often been underestimated or limited to textured hair, Carew has also challenged many of the assumptions that have historically limited Black hairstylists in the fashion industry.
Early Life and Career
Carew was born in Bridgetown, Barbados, and raised in nearby Holetown, St. James. An only child, he attended St. Albans Primary School before moving on to Combermere School, one of Barbados’ most respected secondary schools. Among its notable alumni are both his grand fathers, singer Rihanna and former Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson.
For Carew, the school’s biggest influence came from the drama society. “It all started with the drama society,” he recalls. “Then I started modelling and working with a producer named Jazz Ray H., who put on a lot of fashion shows.
One opportunity led to another and by his late teens, Carew was a familiar face in Barbados. He modelled in fashion shows, appeared in television commercials, including one of the Caribbean’s first HIV-awareness campaigns, and played the lead role in a documentary on renowned Barbadian writer Sir George Lamming, produced by the University of the West Indies.
Carew spent afternoons after school at his mother’s salon before they walked home together. “I’d sit in the salon talking with the clients, leave to meet my friends downtown, then come back and we’d go home together,” he says. Although he grew up surrounded by hairstyling, he never imagined making it his own profession.
His real passion was airplanes. “I’ve always loved aviation,” he says enthusiastically. After finishing school, he worked for eight months with the ground crew at Seawell Air Services at Barbados’ airport, before moving to Toronto in 1989, at 20 years old, to study aviation.
“I’d been coming to Toronto every summer since I was 18 months old,” he says. Living with his aunt in St. Jamestown, he enrolled at Central Commerce Collegiate Institute while exploring the possibility of studying aviation.
The plan unravelled almost immediately.
A guidance counsellor explained that, as an international student on a student visa, his chances of being admitted to an aviation program were slim. Canadian applicants would receive priority.
Deeply disappointed and needing to pivot quickly, he chose the one skill he already knew. “If I can’t get into aviation, I’ll study hair,” he recalls thinking. Hairdressing was never meant to be a destination; it was simply something to fall back on.
He enrolled at Marvel Beauty School in Yorkville, for the ten-month intensive hair program. Looking back, he remembers how little attention Black hair received in the curriculum. “A lot of the students skipped it because they weren’t interested,” he recalls.
Carew’s first salon job came when renowned hairstylist Buster Berkeley hired him at Amorphous Salon. From there, he joined Jazzma, spending two years refining his technique and quickly establishing himself as a rising talent. In 1992, he won the prestigious Contessa Newcomer Award, an early recognition that signalled he was a stylist to watch.
Carew moved to Jie Salon where he spent the next twelve years. When the salon eventually changed ownership, he decided it was time to venture out on his own.
For a short time in 2002, he rented a chair at Azan’s Salon while deciding his next move. Azan encouraged him not to rush.
One afternoon, Carew happened to walk past a fully equipped salon for lease at 98 Scollard Street. It felt like the opportunity he’d been waiting for.
He opened his own salon, Hair 2 Inc, and built his business over the next two decades before closing its doors in early 2020, just weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic brought the city to a standstill.
By then, Carew’s career had expanded far beyond the salon floor.
This special section creates a photo next to a pull-quote
Sometimes we aren’t recognized and don’t get the opportunities we deserve to get things done, even when some of them already know we can do the job. They’ll still give the job to somebody else and there’s issues with that.
Fashion and Diversity
Success hasn’t shielded Carew from the realities of race in the fashion industry. Over the years, he has watched opportunities pass him by, even when clients knew he had the experience and ability to do the job.
As Carew explains, “Sometimes we aren’t recognized and don’t get the opportunities we deserve to get things done, even when some already know we can do the job. They’ll still give the job to somebody else and there’s issues with that.”
Lance Eng is Carew’s producer and owner of Actors & Artists Management in Toronto. Eng says that Carew will often get calls to work on Black models since a lot of other stylists are incapable of working on textured hair.
Eng has made a point of changing that perception.”Over the last two years, Adrian’s done Caucasian models, Asian models, Black models—he can basically do anybody,” says Eng. “That’s how it should be for Black artists in this industry. They shouldn’t be pigeonholed. They should simply be seen as artists.”
In spite of all the obstacles he’s faced, Carew says you can’t just stop. “I live in the now, I enjoy the now. I just have to deal with life as it is right now.”
And Carew’s methods seem to be working for him. He has been featured in dozens of magazines, including Flare, Salon Magazine, Elle Canada, Mob Journal, Caribbean Bride and Canadian Hairdresser.
Influence and Legacy
Three decades after arriving in Toronto with dreams of working in aviation, Adrian Carew has become one of Canada’s most respected editorial hairstylists. His work has taken him from the salon floor to television studios, fashion campaigns and the pages of Vogue Italia, Vanity Fair France, L’Officiel and Australia.
Those who work with him say his greatest strength isn’t just technical skill; it’s his imagination. “Adrian is detailed, professional and incredibly creative,” says Eng. “He can look at a mood board and immediately be like, ‘why don’t we try this’?
Eng continues, “He would always come up with better [Adrian] suggestions for how the hair should go, according to the outfits and everything else. He can always put something together that just looks incredible.”
Although Carew has spent more than three decades in Canada, Barbados remains a constant source of inspiration. Memories of his mother, his childhood and Caribbean culture continue to influence the stories he tells through hair.
Fashion and advertising photographer David Hou has collaborated with Carew on numerous editorial shoots and believes that personal connection is what gives his work its emotional depth.
“People don’t read magazines just to see beautiful pictures,” says Hou. “Without a story, there’s no reason to publish them. When we started working together, I asked Adrian where his inspiration came from. We ended up talking about his mother, his life and Caribbean culture.”
Carew is equally passionate about passing on what he has learned. Having built a career at a time when few hairstyling programs properly taught textured hair, he now encourages the next generation to develop the skills and confidence to work with every hair texture.
“He has so much professional experience,” says Eng. “What I admire most is that he’s always willing to teach. He wants the next generation to reach the same standard. He’s incredibly generous that way.”
Being based in Toronto where fashion is still quite provincial, stylists may produce great work, but getting attention from other parts of the world continues to be difficult.
In that regard, Celia Sears, President and CEO of Show Division based in Milan, has worked with Carew for years in Toronto and sees a future of more international recognition.
“Hairstylist extraordinaire Adrian Carew has coiffed countless celebrities, recording artists, supermodels and beauty queens over the span of his career, “ says Sears.
”Adrian’s latest achievements are being key hairstylist for 2022 LVMH Prize finalist Tokyo James and the ‘Fab 5’ top Afro-Italian designers for Milan Fashion Week. He is also an educator for Show Division’s Inclusive Backstage Masterclass held in Milan each season.”
For someone who once viewed hairdressing as a backup plan, Adrian Carew has built a career that has taken him from a neighbourhood salon in Barbados to fashion’s international stage. And judging by the momentum behind his work, his story is still unfolding.
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