Today we’d like to introduce you to Angelo Canales.
Hi Angelo, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
In short, I’m someone who came from humble beginnings who got a break and actually ran with it. With a lot of hard work and sacrifice, I am now starting to be able to see it all finally pay off. My mom was born in Fort Worth Texas and ran away at 16 to California, being a single Mother we were always on our own. Being a Creative in Silicon Valley I did feel highly out of place and highly poor as well. Places like New York and Los Angeles were where I saw myself living but that just seemed unlikely for someone like me. Fortunately I got the opportunity to move to Miami Beach from my Uncle Chris and quickly my eyes were widely opened to the world of fashion and entertainment industries. After assisting a fashion photographer on set I caught “The Bug.” On set I saw makeup artists and hairstylists working and it clicked for me then on.
In South Beach, I got to assist some of the best Editorial and Session Hairstylists out there. I got to do hair for music videos, television shows, photoshoots, and runways for designers at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week three times in a row. At the same time assisting Sean Donaldson, former creative director of Vidal Sassoon. There I would perfect my precision cutting skills and refine my craft through Sassoon technique. Eventually, the “dream” came true and I was asked to move to New York City to help open a high-end Blow Dry Bar located in the Tribeca neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. There I started my first role as an Educator and Master Stylist. It was a move I made in order to get ushered into New York City, expenses paid, and a move to continue expanding the brand while moving my career forward. I loved being on set, I loved working all the long hours and insane schedules to achieve the final product. I definitely got the experience; I did love the work but eventually, the struggle got real and My Mom started getting sicker. Even though we were on the same page of me working in these big cities to secure our future I could not ignore the fact that I was going to need to move back to Fort Worth. After I eventually moved down and started working at the salon I am currently working at now, my mother eventually passed and I directly turned my grievance into my work and worked my way through it. The work became the best form of art therapy I could hope for.
I have stepped up in my role in the salon as one of the educators and my clientele has grown. I believe the Universe puts you where it wants you to be and I owe everything to my clients. It is their trust and support that keeps me going. The dynamics have changed both in my life and in my career, and my work has grown from it. I’m just living right now and just dedicating myself to the craft and not in a rush to leave a good thing. I am very happy right now living and working in Dallas. I would love to get some editorial and film work here of course so I could keep that passion alive but as for my own salon, I’m just not there yet. I’m happy right now being led under the direction of Holly Dear at the House of Dear Hair Salon.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has definitely never been a smooth road ever with anything in my life. Coming out of child poverty has made me fight harder for anything and everything I have. I had a lot of shortcomings growing up in a single-parent household and I went through my own trauma as a youth. I had always been told who to be and what not to be by the church, mostly by my mother, so when I left Texas I left her and I left my old self behind. The struggle got real and got even more hectic the more and more I started to follow my dreams. Starting with beauty school, I was dropped and had to come back as a return student to finish. turns out the more you want it the harder the program was but once I got my license to do hair, I was able to assist which meant, in turn, taking a huge pay cut and hustling any side gig I could find to survive in Silicon Valley. Miami was easier in that way and I was never one to be afraid of working numerous jobs at once.
When you do assist in high-end salon environments you are mostly working for education and tips, it is your residency if you will. I never had a safety net, I never had a partner to lean on and I never had any credit. I survived mostly due to my talent and my ability to hustle and make it work. I survived hurricanes and shady roommates, Moving back and forth across state lines also took a toll and was a hard gamble each time. New York City was a beast and I loved every moment of it, the struggle was hard and I even became “homeless” sleeping on friend’s couches for a while before moving back to Fort Worth. Hustling from birth is not easy, my biggest regret was not having the money nor the time to come back and visit my mother as much as I should have. This was our ultimate sacrifice. Though life was hard for me growing up it taught me a lot of valuable lessons that helped me brace for my future. Also, the help I had from my closest friends around me who believed in me is literally what kept me going throughout it all. Helping me with food, shelter, or money when I didn’t have it, gave me the fuel to keep fighting. I had a wonderful year with my mother ultimately before she went into the hospital for that last time, the ultimate low of my life you can say. I guess now the only way I can look is up.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I started my hairdressing career wanting to be the next big celebrity Hairstylist so for over a decade I dedicated my direction to learning from the best in Miami Beach and was able to gain experience working on sets for film and television as well as behind runways for fashion week and other fashion events. I would say that I specialize in all formal and photo shoot styling for set work, weddings, and any formal occasions. The next area I specialize in is in Long Hair Cutting. Having assisted Precision-Cut masters from Vidal Sassoon and Toni and Guy, I learned amazing cut techniques and haircuts that were made to stand out. These last four years I have concentrated mostly on my color education that I have been able to specialize in color makeovers and color corrections at my salon. Currently, I am one of the Educators and top stylists here at the House of Dear Salon. My credits from film and television have weight on my resume and they also are responsible for my style being what it is. I try to give every client in my chair that celebrity experience and finish. I believe every client has to look “camera-ready” before leaving my chair. I’m also known to be the best blow dryer and that has always been something that sets me apart and has carried me to the front of line each time. Now that I teach it, it is now becoming my legacy.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I have been known to tell people that I’m not lucky but that I feel blessed. I got to experience a great life so far that combined achieving great success with experiencing many “dream come true” moments that a boy like me shouldn’t have been able to do. Taking risks and having faith is how I get by. From when I first left Texas back to California, Miami to New York, and now from New York to Dallas. Luck and Faith has led the way. I was lucky then because I had positioned myself in the right place and started to get my work experience into the next level of High End customer service. Networking and “being in the right place at the right time” opportunities were happening to me all the time. Once I got it into hair, I was able to utilize my connections to work in big-name salons with celebrity-driven clientele.
I started developing my eye for hair with all the fashion and music video experience I was luckily getting just from having been living in Miami Beach. I felt like I was the luckiest person on earth right now just being able to live my dream, experiencing this massive first-hand education into the fashion and entertainment market. Soon I was getting my own work experience. With the help of my connections I was getting work to do hair for music videos with big name stars like Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin, commercial work for Macy’s and superstar Thalia, and even a television gig doing hair for Daisy Fuentes who I had watched growing up in high school. It was a full-circle moment for me, one that I couldn’t believe was happening. And the blessings and good fortune kept coming in. I didn’t know how much I would need the salon or how much the Universe was at play that guided me here to House Of Dear Hair Salon to be where I am right now at this moment. I am healing and moving on and getting this amazing opportunity to have a beautiful apartment with a beautiful view of downtown Dallas, two beautiful dogs, and I get to work full time in a career I have only dreamed of my whole life. Although my fashion and entertainment work are behind the chair for now, I’m lucky to have a wonderful and loving clientele that is in high demand for my work and my craft is getting better for it as well. I do find myself in a different head space where I am having to create a new identity and vision for myself. I’m also consciously creating roots to keep me here more grounded in Dallas. At this moment I see life differently and now even more so than ever can I say I feel blessed more so than just lucky.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://luvitdown.wix.com/angelostyles
- Instagram: angelostyles
- Facebook: Angelo R Canales
- Twitter: nuconxepthair
Image Credits
Steven Vandervelden
Telemundo
