Kings Meadows' Chris Fidler reaches 60th year of hairdressing

The beehive was in, she wore a pink uniform at work, and her Launceston mall salon used beer instead of setting lotion.

This September the mother-of-two will celebrate a 60-year career that has both taken her across the world and established her as a Launceston treasure.

As friends plan the 60-year celebration - scheduled for Franklin House on October 1 - Chris reflected on a career that could yet extend long into the future.

"I've done lots of stuff," she said.

"I don't know where I fitted it all in."

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Chris started out as an apprentice at Hicks Atkinson - (located in the present-day Harris Scarfe building) - before embarking on her first of many stints in Adelaide.

Her career took off at an Arturo Taverna salon in Victoria Square, which was frequented by Denise Drysdale, a pre-Dame-Edna-Everidge-fame Barry Humphries and French mime artist Marcel Marceau.

She reconnected with Roger in Western Australia - "I'd gone out with him here for a few years before" - and they married and had two children, Pene and Nathan.

Pene works alongside Chris in her Kings Meadows salon to this day.

"She trained under me, now she's married and I've got two gorgeous granddaughters," Chris said.

"It's just lovely hairdressing you know, you have such a rapport with people and you know people."

After running three Peter and Robert salons in Adelaide, Chris and Roger returned to Launceston for good.

She set up her current Kings Meadows salon eight years ago, and sadly lost her husband in the same year.

But she never lost her passion.

Between training in Paris, teaching at TAFE, judging competitions, and sitting on the hairdressing federation board, Chris has embraced a lifetime of learning how to care for people while excelling in cutting hair.

"It's something I always stressed on my staff, that it's a privilege to be able to get into people's personal space and to be aware of how you make them feel," she said.

"That's my philosophy, that it's all about caring and commitment to the person and understanding that it is a privilege to have that ability to go up to people and touch them."

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Part of that care is giving clients a hairstyle they can cultivate themselves at home.

"It's not what you do in [the salon] to make a client look, it's a matter of designing something that the client can do at home and go out and feel good," she said.

"It's important that they can manage it and make themselves feel good every day, not just when they walk out of the salon."

For all that's changed during her career, some things have stayed the same.

One couple has been coming to Chris for 60 years - including for their wedding day in 1970 - and she enjoys having "lots of very loyal clients".

"It's a happy place to work and we've got lots of clients we know really, really well which is really nice," she said.

"While I'm well and keeping okay I suppose I'll just keep going ... I love what I do."

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