L-R: Just Cuts CEO Amber Manning, Just Cuts Toowoomba Stylist Chiaki Mori
This International Women’s day Just Cuts is celebrating the highly skilled Stylists, entrepreneurial salon owners and talented team leaders who have built Australasia’s largest hairdressing network.
The very first Just Cuts franchisees were women, and Just Cuts CEO Amber Manning celebrates a decade leading the family-owned brand and thousands of Stylists in 2024.
“Just Cuts has been supporting women in growing their careers, skills, businesses and families for over three decades,” said Amber. “I’m grateful to be working together with them to embed even more flexibility into our model which we understand is so important for working women.”
“I’m proud to be an employer who supports women returning to work after giving birth, which I have benefited from myself, and builds shifts around time with children and family commitments.”
Gender-neutral pricing has always applied at Just Cuts salons.
“International Women’s Day is all about inclusion, and there’s a strong alignment with Just Cuts because we offer gender neutral pricing – so women never pay more than men regardless of the style they choose.”
Just Cuts Toowoomba Team Leader Chiaki Mori has been a Just Cuts Stylist for eleven years.
“International Women’s Day is a global social, economic, political and cultural achievement,” said Chiaki. “Gender equality means so much to me personally because of my mother. My grandfather was a judge in Japan, and he believed in equality so much he made my mum go to university when that just wasn’t the norm for her generation.”
“I’m grateful to have the opportunities I have here in my career at Just Cuts, and our strong team of Stylists who achieve so much through supporting and learning from each other.”
Chiaki says the growth in women’s equality is reflected through changes in women’s hair styles.
“Back when I started hairdressing twenty years ago I used to mainly style only long hair and bobs. Now all the time female Clients want to be shaved and are so much more open to creativity in terms of asymmetrical cuts, tracks and even mullets.”
“There’s no judgement now if women shave their head, but ten years ago they would stand out.”
Chiaki says she is still supporting women when they worry what men will think of short styles.
“I see it all the time where a woman will say either her husband, her boss, or her partner won’t like short hair. I tell them to think about what they feel comfortable in and what suits them. The whole idea that women should only have long hair doesn’t make sense when you think about icons like Audrey Hepburn and the pixie cut.”
“The best Style Cut is the one you are comfortable and confident in – above all it has to suit you.”