Retail Rebranding: An international hair salon chain is starting a major rebranding exercise at the Dundrum Town Centre, writes Emma Cullinan

A bit of "wow", comfort and relaxation for customers were the aims of international salon chain Toni and Guy, when they chose to update their image.

"People make quick judgements about their environment," says Colm Horam of Oppermann Associates, partner in charge of the project to freshen up Toni and Guy's image.

While starting out with a clean design brief can be easy enough, "adding a fresh concept to a tried and tested formula is difficult", says Colm. "Toni and Guy had a very strong, very recognisable brand."

With hair stylists generally being a creative bunch, there were plenty of ideas bouncing between Alan Boyce, who heads up Toni and Guy in Ireland, Dal Singh, also of Toni and Guy, Colm Horam, and Lorraine Cawley, project designer from Opperman.

The salon they chose to roll out the new look from was the relatively small space in the new Dundrum Town Centre (from here the concept will spread internationally). Effectively dealing with a corridor, measuring 40 metres long by five metres wide, the designers had anything but tunnel vision. The key points were how to make clients happy, after all some would be here for around three hours, by adding points of interest and relaxation.

With all of the activity that hairdressing involves, from gallons of hot water to dye-mixing labs, the idea was to keep the space clean looking but interesting too.

"The brief we gave Oppermann was that we didn't want any clutter, we wanted a clean edge to the work surface," says Singh.

To this end, screens in front of cutting stations have small openings into which all the hairdressing paraphernalia is hidden.

This means that staff don't have to leave their workstations hunting down hairdryers. All of the plumbing for the huge fish tank near the entrance is tucked in beneath the aquarium.

Having pared everything back, the designers then added points of interest. These include the aquarium, and LCD screens (flat screen TVs to you and me) set into mirrors so that customers can watch Toni and Guy catwalk shows, or even presentations on how to care for your hair at home.

Plenty of light comes into the room from the glass wall along one side that overlooks the shopping centre atrium: "Even if the salon lighting was turned off there would be lots of natural light from the atrium but the internal lighting is designed to keep up interest," says Colm.

This has been designed to work with the lengthy room, using a long air-conditioning grille symmetrically interspersed with lights to guide the eye down to the end, where there is a back-lit graphic (which changes every few weeks).

Pendant lights are from chic Italian company Artimede, while all of the chairs are by Phillipe Starck.

These include the chairs beside the basins on which trigger-happy customers can raise and lower themselves automatically, and tip their heads back and lift their legs up. So no more stiff necks when you're being shampooed.

The main elements of this design will be carried through to other salons in Ireland, including a five-storey building in Dublin city centre in the new year, and then the world. Toni and Guy began with two Italian brothers in London, who were trained by their father, and has now stretched internationally.

"The design came about from an evolution of ideas," says Colm. "It was primarily driven by function and then went back to the concept."

That should keep the customers happy then.