Silver Anniversary celebrations at Top Katz

A major milestone is being marked in November with Top Katz owner Marianne celebrating her silver anniversary running the Florence Street hair salon. It’s a chance for Marianne to bring together staff from the last 25 years who have contributed to develop and grow the established business.

“It’s been lovely to witness the apprentices pass through the salon, many as shy teenagers who then develop to become beautiful confident people and go on to be great hairdressers.” says Marianne with glowing pride. “Many have become managers of hair salons on a cruise ship, at Stefan’s Hair Salons or running their own business.” she adds.

Hailing originally from Denmark, Marianne arrived on Australian shores in 1982 travelling for a few years around the country as part of touring shows. He daughter was born ‘on the road’ with her son arriving when they took roots in Wynnum where she began working at the Top Katz salon.

When the business came up for sale she was in the midst of the pregnancy with her second child and so decided to take the salon on to secure a future. It became a family affair after her son was born with Marianne often working with him in a crib tucked away in the corner or under the salon counters.

Marianne delights in the range of her clients from the teens to a regular in her early nineties. Over the past 25 years she has looked after the styling needs of many regular customers seeing second generations of clients pass through the doors with young girls becoming mothers and then their daughters becoming regular clients.

It’s not all women as many men enjoy the Top Katz services as I can testify in the short time it took to conduct this interview.

And the trends in hair? According to Marianne ‘Retro’ is huge particularly amongst the 20-30 year old girls. Colour with overtones such as mauve and lilacs are also popular with the younger set.

There is ‘movement’ in hair with a lot more ‘bounce’ in the current styles.

Top Katz has a broad range of styling products for all hair types and needs. Marianne likes to support local product stocking Brisbane based Hairjamm hairstyling products such as ‘Juuce’ with its colourful array of bottles that adorn the salons shelves.

Marianne sees Wynnum as being on the up… albeit slowly. She is encouraged by the development plans for Wynnum Central School site and would like to see more use of the site.

As to why are there so many hairdressers in Wynnum, Marianne thinks it’s not uncommon for many retail precincts as it requires few staff and relatively little regulations to run.

She is an active contributor to the community recently giving away two ‘retro’ style bikes winning one herself and donating it back. A gold coin donation will enter you in the draw and help the fight against breast cancer.

Away from the salon Marianne enjoys the live music scene in Brisbane, particularly blues. She is active in fitness, participating in the Bridge to Brisbane and local Wynnum Twilight runs.

With one milestone soon under her belt it seems for sure that Marianne and her team will continue to cater for the hairdressing needs of the Wynnum community for some time to come.

Top Katz is a member of WynnumCentral.