Bolton barber achieves career goals with stadium salon

Jignesh 'Jiggi' Madhavji has already established a reputation as a top men’s hairdresser and salon owner after a relatively short career. His Bolton salon is directly linked to the city’s football club, Bolton Wanderers, making it a unique proposition in the world of male grooming. What attracted you to hairdressing? I was never academic in high school, and got involved in practical subjects from a young age. I always loved fashion, and how fashion changes and comes round again. Hairdressing has never been in the family; I have a lot of people asking me what made me get into it. My family in India are goldsmiths, and are very hands on, so that practicality has passed on to me. I had a friend who cut my hair from when I was about nine. I was always asking him what it was like to be a barber, he’d always said it was a job you would never get bored of. Being creative and hands on, I thought it would be a great career move. How did you get started? I volunteered in a local barbers in Bolton and worked for eight months to gain experience, and did college one day a week. I worked in McDonald’s and Asda at the same time to keep me going financially. I developed as a person and my skills started to improve by the day. My passion grew and I started to gain a reputation in the area for barbering. Tell me about your salon. I opened my salon two years ago, after being in the industry for around eight years. By this time I had built a really good client base and a reputation in Bolton for men’s cuts and shaves. An ­opportunity came up at the De Vere Whites Hotel within Bolton Wanderers Football Club grounds. I’d seen the space and I thought “that’s for me, I could make this work”. I put all my finances into it and took the risk. I always wanted a top-end location with character and a buzz. What have been the biggest challenges? The biggest challenge to running my own business has been trying to get existing clients to move to the new location. Key to this has been the free parking and easy motorway access. Also, being in a hotel connected to a football club, clients will always come and go, people move jobs or leave town, so I have to keep promoting the salon to attract new clients. What do you love most about your job? What I love most about my job is that I get to meet so many different people. Being in a hotel, I get clients from all over the world. I get to travel out to some of my clients, and it’s always nice to have a change of environment. Any future plans? I have just set up a pop-up barbers at the House of Fraser store in Manchester, in the menswear department. I’d love to branch out into more department stores. This pop-up will just be pure men’s grooming from dry cuts to hot towel shaves.