Happy Birthday To Matt
Our captain and leader Mr Matt Hughes turned another year older this week. Mister Idris himself (the name Idris is Matt’s middle name and his godfather’s first name, we’re not just huge Stringer Bell fans), the man that built the company from nothing, this week earlier Monday 20th to be exact, we’re celebrating the man who brought us, and indeed you, together.
When discussing with him what I was going to write up this week, Matt said we could maybe discuss what birthdays look like in your mid 30s, but let’s be honest that’s quite a short piece of writing. Friends/family organise a card and some presents, more often than not you just go to work and have a slightly bigger lunch than usual, at some point around the day itself you’ll get pissed and the morning after you’ll reflect that, yes, this is a much worse feeling than it was ten years ago. Rinse and repeat, same again each year until the big 40th birthday bash, after which you might book an ayahuasca retreat, a yoga instructor course, or maybe a hair transplant.
But before the big mid-life crisis/nervous breakdown that tends to surround a 40th birthday, celebrations in your 30s tend to be fairly muted. And our Matt is a humble man who never likes much of a fuss to be made of him. Yet all of his, those working with him and you guys who are greeted by him or indeed having your haircut by him when you come to see us, will know and appreciate everything that Matt does for the business. So I thought I’d dedicate this week’s article to celebrating Matt, telling a little bit more of his story of how he came to build the business, and ultimately embarrassing him and making him feel a bit self-conscious on his birthday. And I’ve got the barbers to help me too.
Matt started Idris back in 2017, having been elevated to the position of Master Barber at one of Covent Garden’s fanciest barbershops, he decided it was time to build his own thing. Having secured a small spot in Tottenham at the front of a warehouse named Ashley House (the building which eventually became Costa Del Tottenham and The Cause), Matt began the business with himself cutting hair two days a week and an apprentice, a young amateur named Tom Forman, cutting hair 4 days a week. Matt was still contracted to his old job, meaning he was working 7 days a week.
Simon and Josh joined, having worked with Matt in other stores in London, and the business moved across the road to Gaunson House on Markfield Road in Tottenham. As Lockdown hit, we made the brave/insane decision to expand and open our second store in FInsbury Park. A few years later we’ve moved all around Gaunson House and landed at the front in Unit 8, whilst the Finsbury Park store has been renovated and staffed by some of the best barbers in the city, all in some way trained by Matt and working to the standards that he’s always set as our benchmark. They say a dog looks like its owner, and I think in many ways Idris as a business has inherited a lot of Matt’s best qualities - its warm, welcoming, cultured but quite fun, and its not only me, Matt’s mate and business partner, who wants to offer some words of celebration towards the big man - a few of the barbers have offered some choice words and memories too…
Kane - describes Matt as a ‘man of the people’ - ‘He paid me through Lockdown despite the fact that I missed the criteria to be eligible for Furlough pay and he was dealing with the financial strain of opening a new shop and welcoming his first kid into the world. It’s the same generosity he showed me when I had nowhere to live at university and he let me top and tail with him in his single bed.’
Amber - ‘All round good guy, good boss. But, I do think I spend most of our conversations either trying to lip read him or asking him to repeat himself he’s just such a good vibes kinda guy’.
Tom - ‘I’ll always remember, before we opened the first Idris store and I’d only known him a week, we went shopping in the big Currys in Tottenham together to buy an iPad for the shop. He went around every iPad in the store, opening the notes app and writing the word ***** on them. I immediately knew he was my kinda guy’.
Simon - ‘I love Matt to pieces, genuinely one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. He’s helped me and taught me so much over the years. One thing about Matt though, is that he is a serial mumbler. Those ones where you’ve asked him to repeat himself 3 times, and still haven’t got a clue what he’s on about. I’ve noticed that the older he’s getting, the harder it is to understand him. We’re only a few steps away from him sounding like that guy on Clarksons Farm. Lucky we all love him
Tino - ‘I worked in an umbrella shop before I met Matt. I went out and handed out CV’s in every barber shop I went into from Camden to Dalston and didn’t get a reply from anyone apart from Matt. He took me on as an apprentice and trained me from nothing, the way he was trained. Couldn’t get rid of me after that.
I’ll finish by saying that as a mate and colleague he really is everything that everyone has said he is, kind, generous, and unbelievably difficult to hear when he speaks. Cheers to Matt.
