As a longtime creative force at TONI&GUY, Bill Watson’s scissors have graced runways, classrooms, and salons across continents. But it’s his role as an educator that truly sets him apart: mentoring stylists not just in technique, but in vision and discipline. Whether leading a masterclass in Chennai, Bangalore or Delhi or refining global curricula, he brings a rare blend of precision and passion, proving that great hairdressing is equal parts artistry and apprenticeship.

What are some of the latest trends in hairdressing these days?
I think Indian women will quite like our new collection. They tend to have notoriously very thick hair, very curly and sometimes wide. And when we look around the world, this trend for narrowness is coming in. When we look at top Indian beauties and top English beauties, we’re all looking at narrower faces. So narrow haircuts are trending too. We’ve gone away from that Jennifer Anderson, very round and full phase to having narrow hair now. By narrow I don’t mean thin hair. Just narrow. So, it’s almost like we’re taking the bulk out of the hair. Whether it’s mid length or quite long, a nice general trend is just this narrowing of their hair, rather than it being straight, it can be narrow and wavy. That’s a nice trend that can work on shorter hair, medium or even longer hair.

What does “artistic innovation” mean to you in the context of Toni&Guy’s global identity?
For me it refers to progress. How do we make people’s lives easier and simpler. And how do we do it in a way where it has some artistic interpretations? So not just does it look good, but does it work well for you? I marry the two together.

How do you balance trendsetting with timeless style in your creative direction?
I worked with a very big supermodel a few years ago. She was legendary, and I heard her being interviewed, and I liked the way she phrased it. They asked her, “Do you follow fashion?” And she said, “I take what I need and I forget the rest.” And I thought that was a really good way to look at it. So, trends are there, maybe to give us some direction and a little inspiration. But at the end of the day, it’s like being comfortable in our own skin. I think it’s important that we see them or filter them through our own tastes than our own character. So, these still belong to us, and we’re not just all end up looking the same.

Can you walk us through a collection or campaign that best represents your artistic philosophy?
I suppose the good one at the moment would be the House of Toni&Guy. This is our private in-house collection. It’s very consumer oriented. We are very famous for our creativity and sometimes outlandish too with all our crazy photos based on what our research and development department comes up with. But in the last five years, we’ve done given exclusive collections to Toni&Guy, that we don’t teach to anybody else. And we think we’re reinventing modern classics. The House of Toni&Guy shows a certain class. It’s somehow like in the design world, if you talk about fashion, people don’t say they go to Chanel, they say they go to the House of Chanel or the House of Dior. So, we called it the House of Toni&Guy, because we felt like we own this feeling in here. We’re a very large hairdressing group, and we are meant to interpret trends for our clients. So, we’re very open to change and open to adaptation. And of course, we look at popular culture, movies, trends and beauty, and because we’re a global brand, we like to think we’re inclusive, not dictatorial. We are also very much about common sense creative solutions, that can be interpreted in a way of beauty. So that’s how deep we go about for our collections. They look simple, but the thought and the process behind them is, can it work on Indians here? Can it work on Greeks there?

As someone who works across continents, how do you adapt Toni&Guy’s creative ethos to different cultural aesthetics?
It’s not as complicated as people think. And the way I tend to sometimes give an explanation is if you make clothes for a living and you’re good at it, you can make them out of denim, you can make them out of silk, you can make them out of cotton. And at the end of the day, human’s hair is a fabric. Once you understand how fabrics work, then you can cut anything. I remember many years ago, the first time I toured India, someone asked me, are you going to invent particular haircuts for Indian women? To be honest, that’s a bit too general. I’m sure some Indian women like it beautiful, some like it a bit funky, some like it classical. We would think more like, they’ve got beautiful curly hair. Yeah, we can cut Italian hair or Spanish hair. We can cut lots of curly Indian hair. So, we give them lots of options, rather than pigeonhole them. We live at a very magical time where we have a much broader view of beauty. I think we’re far more inclusive, and in a healthy way, that means we treat all our clients more as individuals, not as a stereotype.

What are some of the trends that have surprised your regional trends that you’ve noticed in India?
It’s changed drastically since the first time I came to India about 17 years ago. My first experience in India was with loads of women wearing very heavy rich oils in their hair. This was a traditional thing to do. Now I never see it. Especially in the South. When I came earlier, I would also see lots of Indian women with their hair blow dried very straight. Now they wear their beautiful curls. Earlier they’d try and make it look like European, whereas now it’s like they’re embracing their natural texture. It’s developed to a point where they feel more individual and I like that.

How do you ensure consistency in the brand’s ethos and identity, while also taking care of the local?
When you think of teaching, you’re sitting in a room, someone tells you what to do, you practice it in rehearse it, and then you go off and do your thing. And another thing in our company is that apart from imparting education, we also have lots of conversations and give practical knowledge. I don’t want them to try and sound like Bill Watson. I’d like them to sound like themselves, their original self and be confident. And that comes from conversation. So that’s an important part of our education.

What’s your approach to nurturing the next generation of stylists and educators?
I come from a very little country, New Zealand that has only five million people. When I started to travel for this company, people told me you’re going to India where there are over 1 billion people. So I got kind of excited thinking, I’m going to find geniuses. I knew there will be some special young people here who are good. Toni used to say this to me when I travelled with him. Our way of nurturing the new generation, to some degree, is just getting them to believe in themselves. We’re confident our education will work for them, and we think they’ll apply the knowledge we impart to them well. They’ve got every chance to grow and learn.

What was your earliest memory of falling in love with hair as an art form and make it your profession?
It was pure accident. When I was a young guy, my mum was angry when I wanted to be a hairdresser because back then people believed that only stupid people become hairdressers. I was lucky that someone worked in a salon in New Zealand where I was working, and they had worked in London and they started telling me stories. I didn’t know you could travel the world. And I’m so lucky because there this guy who’s like my brother now, but if he had never come into the salon that one day, my life would have been very different. You get lucky who you rub shoulders with. Maybe it’s affected my teaching as I always try to empower young people by telling them to open their imagination. Don’t have limited thinking, because if that guy hadn’t come in and I had not listened to his stories, my life would have been very different.

How did Toni&Guy happen?
I moved to London. I never dreamed about being the best of anything, but I always wanted to work with the best, because I thought if you could work with the best, you’re not that bad. At that time London was the best place for hairdressing. It was the place to be. I talked to some friends from New Zealand, and it was they who suggested I work at Toni&Guy because they saw it as a growing dynamic company that had many opportunities.

Which year was this?
I joined Toni&Guy in 1994. When I was training in London, we had people from Yemen, New Zealand, four Italians, three Greeks, two Germans and other nationalities in my class. And we all stuck together because we were all immigrants.

What’s a trend you believe is overhyped?
You can teach them to cut, but you can’t teach them to care. And I look for those who cannot just cut hair but also touch your heart. You have to like to make other people happy because that’s what we really do in hairdressing. We make people happy. You can do so much with those fingers. Just a little massage adds to the experience. People come to the salon and maybe they don’t want the craziest haircut or the most cutting-edge technology, but they want to feel better. They could’ve had a bad day, maybe had an argument, we can help them by just talking or listening to them like a counsellor. Clients are not there for our pleasure. We’re there for their pleasure. And clients know when their hairdresser cares for them. It’s a unique relationship. There’s a book I read many years ago written by a psychologist, on why humans do their hair. And I’ve never forgotten it’ because I’ve taught it to several classes. There are four groups of people who physically touch you every year. Doctor, dentist, husband / lover and hairdresser. We hate our doctors and dentists because there’s pain involved. Husbands and lovers give 50 /50, pleasure and pain. If you love your hairdresser, you love him or her fully, every time they touch you, you’re happy. So, we hairdressers, occupy a very strange place in your lives.

I think the K beauty is overhyped. Everyone has individual features that’s unique to them alone. When I lived in Tokyo, people asked me why did I love it so much? There are 38 million people there and they dress trendy, but no one stares at others. They don’t even look at each other. There’s a freedom. They still dress up like goddesses. It’s rude in their culture to stare. And I just think that’s nice. Sometimes it’s almost like you’re bullying a woman when you tell her you have to look like this or do hair like that.

What’s been your most defining moment so far?
I did a cover for Vogue. That was the little boy dream from New Zealand. It took a long time to get there. Many ups, many downs, and that’s for me a landmark moment to think my work made the cover of that magazine. I was in China and suddenly just somehow, all this work fell in my lap. In London one year we did our big show for 4,000 people at the legendary Royal Albert Hall. Every famous singer has performed there. I remember walking in going many floors below thinking to myself, “Frank Sinatra’s been in here and Stevie Wonder and so many other icons. Oh, my God, I’m going to do a haircut in front of 4,000 people in two hours. It was a dream come true for a little kid from New Zealand.