In a very expensive gesture of thanks, salon owners and Manhattan staples Pierre Ouaknine and Michel Obadia have opened a new 10,000-square-foot salon, just steps away from their former namesake outpost, Pierre Michel.
Apparently, pleasing the customer takes precedence no matter the financial climate, especially if the customer is discerning and has been uniquely loyal for the past 40 years.
“They’ve followed me from location to location,” said Ouaknine, who has operated outposts in Trump Tower, The Plaza hotel, Bloomingdale’s and at 131 East 57th Street. “We cater to four generations of clients! And, she wants to be spoiled and she wants something new. I have to give that to her,” said Oukanine from the new salon, located on the third floor of 135 East 57th Street.
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He can’t complain, he said, as during the recession — where consumers have been stretching out their salon visits — his business is only down 3 percent. In fact, 2008 was the best year Pierre Michel had since first opening a salon in 1967. Success, he said, can be attributed to a number of things, including his 40-year career here, the fact that “96 percent of his clientele live in New York,” and his customers tend to be affluent and range from 10 to 90 years old.
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During a tour of the space last week, Ouaknine commented on the salon’s warm and cool tones, and how it is lighted differently throughout to “give a feeling of home.” Over and over again he said how proud he is to be able to give something so special to his customers and to leave them with something that they can remember him by. Is he going somewhere?
“No,” said Ouaknine, but he said it was important to have something “so beautiful” to be his and his business partner’s swan song, which was designed by architect and designer Peter Williamson, who has also put his fingerprint on Frédéric Fekkai’s Fifth Avenue salon.
The former Pierre Michel, which closed Saturday, opened 11 years ago and was designed in a loft format, back when that was the style. The new space, which sources estimated to have cost close to $4 million to build, appears to have it all: There are 61-workstations, each designed to offer clients a bit of privacy and with low noise output thanks to ceiling cutouts and soundproof tile floors; a mani-pedi nook outfitted with sofas, WiFi and a plasma-screen TV; a low-lit shampoo area with chairs that have a massage feature; a state-of-the-art cafe and coffee area; a germ-a-phobe’s dream bathroom, complete with touchless faucets and a Dyson Airblade automatic hand dryer, and treatment rooms where VIP’s can get beautified from head to toe in complete privacy. To help the salon’s 150 member staff to better serve clients, workstations have been equipped with a camera and telephone to facilitate communication.
The new salon, which opened for business Tuesday, exclusively sells Shu Uemura beauty products in the pro world, said Ouaknine, and also offers the salon’s own RepHair by Pierre Michel, which was formulated in 2005 to repair damaged hair and stimulate hair growth.