As we enter our third year of City Skin Clinic, you might remember that last summer we finally found a name for our blog which we felt suited the style and the vision for this increasingly popular platform. What started out as a blog that complemented the clinic, has grown into a brand with its own following, independent vision and style. Of course, The Modern Salon still remains hosted on the City Skin Clinic website but we like to think of the two brands as sisters rather than twins. Today we’re delighted to finally launch separate social media channels on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for The Modern Salon!
Why The Modern Salon
For the longest time, we kept coming up with and rejecting names because they didn’t quite reflect the way that our blog was being used to exchange ideas and connect threads on cultural and social issues. I did, however, keep coming back to the idea of this being a “virtual salon” for exchange of all ideas big and small. The Modern Salon is a reference to the coffeehouses and drawing rooms of the enlightenment period. In these physical spaces, people gathered together debate and exchange ideas Very importantly to me was the role that the women, Salonnieres, played in hosting and facilitating these Salons. This role was not, however, that of a passive hostess but allowed them to curate and contribute to important political and cultural conversations which women were not privy to at that time.
Fast forward to the modern era and the word salon commonly refers to beauty spaces which is still where people (mainly women) not only go to for beauty treatments in the same way that the attendants of the enlightenment salons did not simply attend for the food. Beauty salons are another space where people gather to socialise and share ideas. I felt that this duality in meaning truly suited our platform.
Since its inception, this blog has used beauty as a lens to reflect on wider social, cultural and political issues. In essence, we’ve been using beauty blogging in the same way that the salonnieres used dinner parties to facilitate intelligent debate. Yet we’ve simultaneously, like a beauty salon, provided a space where you can find and share beauty tips, reviews and advice in a close-knit community. Looking back, our name could have only ever been The Modern Salon.
