Salon Peachy: Master Stylist Edward Tricomi and Master Colorist Joel Warren Earn Whom You Know's Highest Recommendation - Their Phenomenal Hair Experience at Manhattan's Legendary Plaza Hotel Will Have Your Hair at Its Best!
Edward Tricomi, Peachy Deegan and Joel Warren at Warren Tricomi at The Plaza Hotel
"Three things go down here.
Good Rock & Roll,
Having Fun
and
Doing Beautiful Things!"
In January of 2009, Whom You Know began and that year, we had the good fortune of attending an event at Warren Tricomi, where we enjoyed chatting with Edward, who's quite the intellectual-he says it's not how you spell, it's how you write. We followed up with a Mover and Shaker interview which you can read by clicking on his name above, and now we could not be more excited to follow up with a formal review for Salon Peachy. Warren Tricomi is owned by Edward and his business partner, Joel Warren.
Joel tells us that he and Edward met on a collaboration for Ford Models many years ago and joined forces in 1990.
Warren Tricomi was the first business to enter The Plaza Hotel after its renovation, and has been there since 2007. Warren Tricomi is the official salon of The Plaza Hotel. We were greeted graciously by Kim the office manager upon our arrival, and then Peachy Deegan ascended the stairs to Joel's chair of beautiful color.
The decor is palatial and celebrated in black and white with mirrors strategically placed and custom-made chandeliers that illuminate the beautiful experience-though we are window enthusiasts you will not miss them here with the glorious light coming from the chandeliers.
If you read us often, you know who is a maniac for chandeliers.
There is even a column, Chandelier Peachy....
The upbeat music graces the background and we even heard "Come Fly with Me" by Frank Sinatra when we were in Edward's chair.
First, we were honored to work with Joel Warren and we began with a consultation. If you are an avid reader of Salon Peachy, you know Peachy has one overwhelming desire in the hair-coloring process: not to be red. Sometimes she even has nightmares about her hair turning red. She had a couple of bad red experiences in college, even with a Newbury Street salon. Peachy's overall goal in hair color is to achieve her natural color with natural blonde highlights, covering any offending grays with zero redness. Although Joel is obviously hugely accomplished in the color world, he said right off the bat: "It is what you think, not what I think and you can have both: no gray and no red. It's easy. I can do that."
Awesome.
Magic happens at Warren Tricomi.
Peachy likes her natural color and wants to look like herself, but better of course.
"I think you know what you want, it's pretty specific and I am pretty sure I can achieve it!" said Joel with enthusiasm. This was the first time we met Joel and the experience could not have been more phenomenal. Since it was the first time, you can imagine Peachy had beaucoup de questions and Joel could not have been more professional in his approach to answering them all, in addition to being both entertaining and insightful.
We asked Joel what the world should know about Warren Tricomi, and he said, "It is a combination of getting amazing service and getting amazing haircare combined in an unusual incredibly cool space. If you take the three components, the atmosphere, the people who work here and the work they do: that is what creates Warren Tricomi."
He says the average tenure at Warren Tricomi is "a lifetime."
In our experience, phenomenal colorists are harder to find than phenomenal stylists, so we asked Joel what makes him a better colorist than everyone else....he said: "It's like anything. It's about taste and taste level. Some people have different taste levels and the better your taste is, the better you are usually at what you do."
We're going to take that thought with us on reviews to other disciplines.
"We are the flagship salon for L'Oreal Professional, and I am the Ambassador for L'Oreal Professional and we use all L'Oreal Professional haircare on you. Only the best. We are going to be using a combination of a Level 5 neutral for your base color (Peachy's Natural Color) and then for the highlights, we are using a non-ammonia lightener, which can lighten anywhere from two shades to ten shades. And totally without any red!"
Thank you Joel, our color dreams have come true thanks to your incredible talents.
P.S. Please follow our friend Joel on Twitter!
And, we had to ask if Eloise comes to Warren Tricomi to get her hair done. "Sure, all the time! She does not change her color; she's pretty consistent," says Joel. "So does Macaulay Culkin."
We know you have seen Home Alone.
Joel Warren did highlights in foil all over Peachy's head, and his assistant Kelly Mullin added Peachy's natural base color to her roots, and another assistant painted Peachy's natural color on her ends.
After Peachy's hair was washed, glazed and conditioned, she worked with Edward's cordial assistant who reads on her commute (see our book column Read This), and she blew out Peachy's hair straight with incredible finesse. Edward Tricomi cuts hair dry. Peachy needed a bit of a trim, but wanted to retain her length and she thought maybe half an inch, but Edward said: "We don't judge it like that: we judge it by what looks right on you. So what I'm going to do is fix your hair and give you the best haircut and leave your hair long."
As you might imagine, there is a lot of computer time in Peachy's life where her hair is off-duty and pulled back. She has made the mistake of putting her hair in elastics which Edward accurately pointed out is breaking her hair in half, but has resurrected her cloth headbands which will be back in business going forward. You know who also uses a headband...
We asked Edward what he thinks the world should know about Warren Tricomi.
"We are probably the most artistic salon in the country," says Edward Tricomi. "We're the real deal, and what I mean by that is that we're an Editorial-Based Salon. We work designers and celebrities and so on and so on, and we have always been an Editorial-Based Salon. We work with everybody. I've worked with every major fashion designer. In fact I was just pulling photos from what I did with Oscar de la Renta. I've worked with everyone in the world: [Richard] Avedon, Yves Saint Laurent, Irving Penn, [the list goes on] - name a designer-I've worked with them. I've been doing this for 45 years."
You would not think Edward is much older than 45, and clearly he and Joel do not need to be reviewed. But we're so glad that he and Joel wanted to be!
The cut is truly phenomenal, thank you Edward. We would not dream of the elastics anymore and the cut is so fitting, the headbands are sitting on the sidelines at the moment.
And finally, if you are also an Ancient (the term for a graduate of Miss Porter's School) you know that Edward is also famous for famed Vogue Editor Polly Allen Mellen's hair, and we remember her speaking to our school when Peachy was a student. Edward says the day after he did her hair for the first time, she had Penn book him.
What you should be booking is your appointment with Joel and Edward!
Edward Tricomi and Joel Warren have earned our Highest Recommendation, and our experience at Warren Tricomi was phenomenal.
Also, we liked the coffee and the gorgeous white china with gold accents.
You will be so happy, you will want to virtually swing from the chandeliers with Eloise.
Don't tell Nanny.
About the Warren Tricomi Salon Business from their website:
Master colorist Joel Warren and master stylist Edward Tricomi are authorities in the world of hair. Their unrivaled expertise sets trends and has defined beauty across the globe. Joel’s talent for customized hair color and Edward’s high precision dry cuts make the Warren-Tricomi Salons a one-stop beauty destination.
In 1990, the duo collaborated with business guru Roxana Pintilie, a third and equal partner and the driving force behind every facet of the business. Collectively they debuted the first Warren-Tricomi Salon in midtown Manhattan. In 2008, they opened the luxurious Plaza Hotel flagship location and today the thriving empire features eight U.S salons, each designed uniquely to fit its geographic location with a modern twist.
Beyond the salon business, Edward and Joel continue to cultivate their namesake product line, Warren-Tricomi Haircare, the first to be developed by both a colorist and a stylist. Together, the pair is a force to be reckoned with, constantly striving to reach new heights within the beauty industry.
Joel Warren is one of the world’s most recognized colorists, but he started out as an aspiring chef. Inspired by his girlfriend, a beautician, Joel decided to try his hand at beauty school. In his early twenties, he took a job at a Manhattan salon and was fascinated by the process of mixing formulas. He found that the rewarding feeling of creating beautiful hair color was similar to coming up with the perfect recipe.
Joel Warren, Master Colorist and Co-Founder at Warren-Tricomi Salons
As renowned colorist Louis Licari’s first male assistant, Joel learned from the best. He became widely known for his ability to perfectly customize every client’s color using advanced techniques. Modern in his methods, he is adamant about constantly expanding his horizons, keeping up with the latest hair trends and mastering the skills for creating them. What sets him apart is his masterful eye for contrast, shadow and depth.
Joel joined forces with master stylist Edward Tricomi and business guru Roxana Pintilie to open a salon in Midtown Manhattan in 1990. In 2008, they launched the luxurious Plaza Hotel flagship location and today the team leads a thriving business of eight salons in the U.S., each designed uniquely to fit its geographic location with a modern twist. Joel and Edward also own a product line, Warren-Tricomi Haircare, the first to be developed by both a colorist and a stylist.
Edward Tricomi, Master Stylist and Co-Founder at Warren-Tricomi Salons
Linda Fargo – “Edward is THE Rock Star of the hair biz. He plays his scissors with as much groove, intuition, precision, finesse and inspired excellence as the Hall of Famer that he is. He created my signature bob and I am his forever!”
Legendary Warren-Tricomi Salons co-founder Edward Tricomi is known for demanding excellence in everything he does. Be it hair, fashion, or music – when Tricomi is involved, perfection isn’t just expected: it’s inevitable.The roots (no pun intended) of his renowned career began after a suggestion from his sister that he try cutting hair to supplement his income as a musician. Growing up, Edward read Vogue religiously, devouring and absorbing the art within it. Moreover, as the grandson of a fashion designer, he was always surrounded and inspired by the world of fashion. Decades later, Edward is perhaps the most iconic and influential hair historian of our era.
Working his first New York City salon job in the 1970s (working with the likes of Bianca Jagger and Salvador Dali) inspired in him an ambition to create his own beauty empire. He began doing editorial hairstyling, landing his unique and innovative work on numerous prominent fashion magazine spreads and covers.
Edward achieved the position of Art Director at the Jaxavier Salon, widely considered to be the epicenter of style at the time. There, Edward was introduced to world famous stylist and Vogue editor Polly Mellen, whose profound influence helped propel his career to the next level. Through mutual respect and admiration for each other’s talent and work, Polly booked Edward to collaborate alongside iconic fashion photographers including Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Patrick Demarchelier and Helmut Newton. Edward also met Deborah Turbeville, with whom he began a 40 yearlong professional relationship, each one inspiring and impacting the other’s illustrious career. The transformational artistic integrity, avant-garde travel and art exposure that Edward’s editorial career afforded him continue to inspire him decades later.
Glowing reviews from fashion photographers and a sparkling reputation prompted fashion designers to take note of Tricomi, who soon began styling the looks for fashion shows for brands including Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent, Emanuel Ungaro, Calvin Klein, Dior and many other top tier designers around the world. Edward’s innate understanding of hair and fashion coupled with his visionary ideas regarding their potential to intersect in order to enhance one another propelled him to the forefront of the industry.
Working at strong editorial-based salons helped Edward hone (and eventually perfect) his craft, leading to the development of his signature dry-hair precision technique and rapid-fire method of cutting, which is frequently compared to an artist sketching. It also serves as the inspiration for his loving nickname, “Edward Scissorhands.” This unusual style of cutting mimicks the hair’s natural state with ‘perfectly imperfect,’ abstract layers and allows him to see how the cut will look in the hair’s natural state. Edward is known and respected for this intellectualized approach to hair by elevating the process, he is also elevating the result and ability to understand how each haircut needs to be uniquely tailored and designed to suit the individual for whom it is for.
At the top of his game, Edward decided to leave the editorial world and focus on building his namesake salon business. In 1989, he joined forces with colorist Joel Warren to open the first Warren-Tricomi Salon on East 57th Street in New York City. In addition to fashion and music, Edward has a strong passion for architecture his keen artistic eye, understanding of structure, and dedicated passion have lead him to be integral in the design and layout of every single Warren-Tricomi Salon. The original location closed in 2009 when the salon moved to its current flagship local in the iconic and incomparable Plaza Hotel. Each Warren-Tricomi Salon is incredibly unique, with different décor to reflect the location and personality and essence of the city or neighborhood within which it resides. The brand has a rich history of designing and building some of the most unique salons in the world.
Warren-Tricomi prides itself on being more than just a hair and beauty salon. All stylists trained at Warren-Tricomi are required to study and become experts in not only styling, but also fashion history. It is fundamental to the Warren-Tricomi brand that this extensive knowledge and perspective is present in every single haircut given in their salons. Few other salons can also make this claim, in the same way that few other salons are perpetually and actively on the forefront of beauty and fashion in the way Warren-Tricomi has been for the last 25 years. This significance and influence is evident in many facets of Tricomi’s business, one of which is the fact that they do at least three fashion shows each season, all over the world.
Throughout his prolific career Edward has mentored many well-known stylists including Italo Gregorio, Patrick Melville and Ric Popino. He has worked with virtually every celebrity, including Barbara Streisand, Mick Jagger, Nicky and Paris Hilton, the Kardashians, Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon. Edward is constantly garnering inspiration from the people he works with: models like Patti Hansen, makeup artists like Pat McGrath and photographers like Roxanne Lowit.
The legacy of Edward and the Warren-Tricomi Salons continue to be a driving force and influential cornerstone of both the beauty and fashion industries. Their cutting-edge techniques, coupled with their deep appreciation and understanding of history and those who have come before and inspired them, enables Edward’s business to be the embodiment of modern fashion and beauty; at once both trendsetting and classic. Yet despite his significant impact and illustrious, celebrated career one esteemed fashion photographer and devoted Warren-Tricomi customer calls Edward a “phenomenon and one of the most talented hair dressers in the world” passionate and devoted beauty pioneer and mogul Edward Tricomi will tell you he’s never worked a day in his life.
