An Interview with Award Winning Stylist Dwight Miller

After witnessing the botching of a close friends’ hair, Dwight Miller left the Marines for a career as an industry consultant in the world of hair styling. After a spontaneous decision to attend beauty school and being the only male graduate in his class, Dwight now has a successful salon called Salon Santa Fe Inc. and VLVT academies, (versatile learning-versatile techniques). “The salon is very Santa Fe, no advertising, no sign, all word of mouth,” explains Dwight. “[I] was careful not to take clients from other hairstylists. How clients found me in general...If people like you and their hair, that's it.” Dwight has also added to his list of clients because, “I love doing unusual cuts on my clients; probably why I attract clients that don’t want to look like anyone else.”
 
Dwight described his success in the following way: “If doing clients, we’re only as good as our last haircut or color. If working for a product manufacturer, only as well as the results I’m hired to produce; if headlining a hair show, only as good as the audience we’ve drawn. Sure, I can look at the scope of what I’ve achieved but success is something that is measured by one’s own standards, experience and objectives.”
 
Another one of Dwight’s successes would be that he has presented, won and been a judge at the NAHA (North American Hairstyling Awards).
 
“I came up with the master’s category, as they weren’t getting the big names to compete at the beginning. Today, NAHA represents all levels from the newest to the most seasoned,” Dwight said.
 
Dwight values the successes of the teams he has created more than the companies he has built. People from those teams are big-name stylists now.
“The team I built in Korea, more recently and the Korean product company [is] now the largest in that country, in all categories, liquids, perms and color. [The] only other company to achieve this was Matrix during my stint there.”
 
Dwight has been in this industry for 45 years. He has had a fascinating journey to get to where he is today. Once he graduated from a Marinello-Comer franchise school, ‘Southwestern Beauty School’ in San Diego, he was faced with several offers. He chose to take a job in Del Mar, California as a replacement for a stylist who had to return to the Navy reserves. After a great season, he moved on to Pacific Beach’s Exotica Incorporated. “The eccentric owner was one of the most talented hairdressers I had seen to date,” said Dwight. “Ivory inlayed (smuggled into the US) stations, fabric laced with real gold thread. I worked from evening till near dawn, with a cliental of high caliber call girls. The owners skipped the country, owing more money then I could count in those days and so, it was off to Hollywood.”
 
Hairstyle trends fade away, they make comebacks and they are always being reinvented. “In hairstyling, there is a strong desire to push the envelope to more complex work, especially in photo images,” explains Dwight. “In the salon, there is an influence from celebrities, make-up and hair. For the most part it’s hairstylists, make-up artists and fashion stylists behind them. Kind of a circle, if you will, with no beginning and no end.”
 
“Trends should be more individual based, [meaning] one has to interpret styles in their own way, for each client. My work has only improved, [it’s] more daring, with no end in sight for growth as a hair-artist.”
 
Dwight explains, “Fashion travels in spirals. Styles reoccur in different interpretations.”
 
“If I was to talk about myself, as I produced four trends a year for two major product companies from '81 to '91 (have never stopped just less often since), I did this one called 'High Rollers' where I set the hair in rollers in the finished pattern, removed the rollers and that was it,” Dwight explained. “[I] was in USA Today three times within a few months, interviews, magazines and newspapers followed for months as I spouted about the age of styling.”
 
Dwight has enjoyed all the hairstyle trends that have come and gone. He said, “I wish every client could go to any stylist and get a good haircut, color and style. The industry is far from it. There is no new shape that hasn’t been done before, no reason or excuse for a poor haircut or style.”
 
The best part about the hairstyling industry is the constant change and new experiences.
 
Dwight explains why he loves his career, “There is never an end to developing one’s personal skill. Having a great eye for shape and balance separates artistry from technical skills, working with people, collaborating with clients; it’s all an endless learning and continuous personal growth cycle.”
 
www.DwightMiller.com