Raffel Pagès dies, leaving his chain of hair salons in the hands of his daughters

They say that Raffel Pagès felt more like an image creative than a hairdresser. The businessman died this morning, May 9, in Barcelona, at the age of 78. A benchmark in the hairdressing sector and promoter of training centers in the industry, Pagès was a self-made man with a knack for everything related to creativity, such as writing, painting, sculpting, or creating a hairstyle.

Born into a family of hairdressers, he used to say that "he never liked hairdressing as a profession." It was his father who, against his will, initiated him into the business, but he changed his mindset thanks to his stay in Paris. There he trained at Carita, the best hair salon in the world in the 60s, where he understood the importance of a good balance between image, body, and hairstyle.

"Hairdressing there was something else. It was the world of styling, of image, of Haute Couture and Haute Coiffure, it had nothing to do with the perspective of the gray Spain of those years. I was able to understand the importance that a good balance between image, body, and hairstyle can have," explained Pagès.

Thanks to Paris, he decided to import the glamour he had discovered to Spain, with the inauguration in 1975 of his first beauty salon in Barcelona, ​​on Reina Elisenda street 16.

In the Olympic year of Barcelona 1992, he undertook his great project and the true seed of the firm: the Raffel Pagès Institute of Perfection, a center created for the exclusive training of his collaborators and which today is open to any professional. For Raffel Pagès, training is one of his most important points on which the way of life should be based: "You have to learn throughout your life, I am still learning and I will continue to do so until the end of my days," he used to say.

Raffel Pagès explained that the keys to success involved four 'I's: Invest, Investigate, Intuit, and Innovate. "Hairdressing is the profession of dialogues and silences," he also liked to say. For more than 30 years, the businessman gathered a collection of more than 7,000 objects related to the world of hairdressing, which are exhibited in the Raffel Pagès Hairdressing History Museum.

His chain currently has 80 salons employing more than 300 people. The family business is now in the hands of his daughters, Carolina and Quionia Pagès, belonging to the third generation, who have committed to respecting "the pure essence with which" the Catalan chain "was founded."