Leading Toronto Hair Salon Says Frustration Over Covid Closures Led To Launch of New WorldMarket

4 min readMay 18, 2021

After thirty one years of styling the locks of the best and brightest in Toronto, worldSALON, Canada’s greenest salon, has pivoted to include a new brand to the WORLD family, worldMARKET. The brainchild of master stylist, founder Brian Phillips and salon manager Andrew Wu, the carefully curated selection of offerings in the hip, urban shop, are meant to enhance the client hair experience. Says Wu, “After the second lockdown, instead of giving up, Brian and I decided to focus on finding some really cool like minded brands to introduce to our clients and the community. Creating the market seemed like the way to do it. Also, we are known for our commitment to the environment. Giving artists somewhere to shine especially because of COVID, will get the eco message out more.”

Inspiration came with the success of the Brooklyn, NY based Zam Barrett Zfactorie Pop Ups at worldSALON in 2018. For three weekends that summer, the salon was transformed into an East Village artisnal fashion boîte complete with custom leather belt workshop and personal consults with the “slow fashion” designer in residence. “The Zam PopUps showed us how thirsty people are for beautifully crafted, sustainable goods that are timeless. worldMARKET is not about having more stuff, but creating experiences that go beyond just an amazing cut and colour”, says Phillips.

The former eight station, solar salon has been reduced to four stations in the back and marketplace in the front. Salon hours have been extended and staff is fully invested in the exciting new retail opportunities. “earthMARKET”, for instance, is devoted to creatively packaged plants for purchase. “The salon has always been full of gorgeous plants that Brian and I take care of and people would come in constantly, asking if they were real,” says Wu. “Now clients can take a little ‘world flora’ home with them.”

Other brands you will discover at worldMARKET — a capsule collection from “IvanLoydChung” — Boston based streetwear designer and former owner of Studio Deluxe on Queen St. West in Toronto; Salmon Arm, BC based MissMack Clean Beauty Makeup — a minimal, multiuse, professional line designed for all ethnicities; and CLOU handmade hair accessories, gorgeous metal architecture for the hair from Boulder, Colorado. Zam Barrett’s ZFactorie will once again find a home at worldSALON/worldMARKET for his cutting edge SS21 collection — new Toronto devotees are sure to follow.

“Being angry with the unnecessary COVID closures in our industry was going to give me an ulcer. Andrew and I instead decided to use our energy to create a beautiful space people will like visiting and spending time in once restrictions are lifted”, says Phillips. “It makes good business sense to integrate and cross pollinate digitally with all our new brand partners. It will not only be great for the salon, but it will bring more exposure to our flagship eco brands WORLD Hair and Skin — world.ca — and NogginOil — nogginoil.com .”
The space has incredible light, thanks to south-facing windows, and St. James Park right across the street. No wonder the plants are so happy. The duo are also planning to use the location for monthly photoshoots to showcase brands and promote the excellent hair coming out of worldSALON. This will include their new loc — dreadlock — services and regular loc workshops by Karen Wallington of Modlocks.com fame. Phillips and Wallington co-founded the NogginOil brand for locs and sectioned hair and are also completing Season Two of the LocTalk.com podcast on YouTube, Apple and Spotify — great examples of keeping busy during a pandemic.

Says Wu, “We’ve created a new Shopify site for the salon and market at worldSALON.ca , so people can purchase all our brands now on line and find out why we love them. It will be fun to change things up at worldMARKET as time goes on. It’s a journey and we’re excited to have people take it with us.”