It seems there’s nothing stylist and Goldwell brand ambassador Jacob Khan can’t do. As co-founder of Fancy Hairdressers, he helps deliver expert tress tutelage to fellow stylists using easy-to-grasp techniques. The pro shines when on stage connecting with colleagues at a national hair show or reaching out to consumers via social media sites like Instagram, where he counts more than 540,000 followers (at time of publication). And somehow, he still finds time to see clients at Jacob K Hair, his Georgia-based salon. Not bad for a guy who got started cutting hair in his garage.
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It seems there’s nothing stylist and Goldwell brand ambassador Jacob Khan can’t do. As co-founder of Fancy Hairdressers, he helps deliver expert tress tutelage to fellow stylists using easy-to-grasp techniques. The pro shines when on stage connecting with colleagues at a national hair show or reaching out to consumers via social media sites like Instagram, where he counts more than 540,000 followers (at time of publication). And somehow, he still finds time to see clients at Jacob K Hair, his Georgia-based salon. Not bad for a guy who got started cutting hair in his garage.
School of Rock
Khan was born in Massachusetts but moved around the East Coast as a kid before finally settling with his family in Atlanta. At age 14, he and his friends were into the punk and emo music scene. “Everyone wanted to have really funky hair, but no one had the money to pay for professional cuts,” says Khan. Instead, the young rocker became their resident hairdresser. “I’ve always had an undeserved confidence and I thought I had awesome skills and knew exactly what I was doing—until I got to hair school,” he says.
At Paul Mitchell The School Atlanta, Khan embarked on the start of an educational journey that would come to define the course of his professional career. After graduation, he assisted for six months at DASS Salon and Spa, taking clients, learning from experience and saving all his tips. Those funds got funneled into ongoing Vidal Sassoon courses that provided additional instruction—but the burgeoning pro still wanted more. This was in the nascent stages of the Internet, a time before the explosion of social media, when options for online learning were limited. “I started subscribing to hair websites and whatever professional programs I could find at the time,” says Khan. He also enrolled in an instructor program at Paul Mitchell The School Esani, which instilled teaching confidence and helped round out his formal instruction. An apprenticeship with Wayne Lee, a former Beverly Hills, California-based hairdresser and Vidal Sassoon instructor, made Khan feel he was finally fluent in the language of hair, after years of intense immersion.
Paying it Forward
By 2012, Khan felt ready to share the vast array of information and techniques he’d worked hard to acquire. “To promote my own classes publicly, I began cold calling salons, printing flyers and driving miles to numerous locations to spread the word,” he says. That early experience now translates to a valuable professional lesson for stylists getting their beauty industry start: You have to get your hands dirty. Being self-motivated and hustling to make his goals happen rather than waiting for someone to provide opportunities helped Khan become self-made.
From the beginning, Khan referred to his educational tenets as “fancy”—a tongue-in-cheek euphemism for a system that is, in fact, defined by its simple nature. “That means no puffed-up terminology, no weird new names for classic techniques, just real-life education designed to enrich and empower hairdressers,” says Khan. When Facebook kicked off, the stylist took advantage of that burgeoning platform as an effective means of self-promotion. He next expanded to Instagram, sharing not only images but also videos of classes—and that’s when Fancy Education took off. “From being free and having no one, our courses suddenly filled up and we were able to start making a profit,” says Khan.
In 2016, the time also felt right to open his own eponymous salon. The space was tiny and slammed with people—“We were breaking fire codes every day,” says Khan, laughing—so months after starting in a 1,200-square-foot shop, the entrepreneur broke his lease and moved into the 4,000-square-foot location currently based in Roswell, Georgia. Following a recent expansion, the salon now also boasts a beautiful learning space that can seat up to 100 students, bringing Khan one step closer to his mission of becoming the Southeast’s premier education destination.
Coming Full Circle
When not busy working—which isn’t often—Khan hosts a podcast called “This Is a Bad Idea” with his Fancy Hairdressers co-founder, Ben White. His love of music hasn’t faded, but instead of performing with bands and for musical theater like he did as a teen, the stylist now enjoys karaoke nights with friends. He and his wife Shelby live in the country, where axe throwing has become another favorite hobby. A former stylist, Shelby realized during the pandemic that food is her true passion, so she’s now working on a cookbook and instructional course that follows a “doable recipes for everyone” model. In the philosophy of keeping recipes simple so they can be universally adopted—be it for hair or food—Jacob and Shelby are perfectly aligned. The key, says Khan, is to first master the fundamentals. “Hairdressers are artists, so we often want to be overtly creative before acquiring the necessary technical skills,” he says. “I think that held me back at the start, and if there’s one piece of good advice I can pass on, it’s to start by fine-tuning the basics.” Then there’s nothing you can’t do.
Get Real
Jacob Khan shares practical tips for stylists to get ahead.
- Practice as many styles as possible, so you can develop your own. When I was first coming up, there was a lot of idealism regarding particular styles of work. Were you doing French or English cutting? Did you work with scissors or razors? I found it most beneficial to practice everything and eventually develop my own blended style.
- Take your tools home with you. So many hairstylists leave their tools at the salon, which means they miss out on practice time at home. Have either a salon kit and a home kit, or take tools home. Do mannequin work all the time, cut friends’ and family’s hair, and make sure you’re not just waiting for your next client to practice.
- Take care of yourself. One thing I wish I’d done differently early on was take better care of my body. We do physical work that can be very taxing, so take care of your physical health if you don’t want to burn out. Half the hairdressers I know are 30 years old with a bad back—and the other half stretch and do yoga.
