She&rsquo;s the hyper-successful queen of blonde and one of Fashion Week's most in-demand backstage creatives, but Faye Browne&rsquo;s hard-won road to success was anything but smooth sailing.&nbsp;

&lsquo;I&rsquo;m from a working-class family in Liverpool. My dad's Irish - one of 11 children - and he came over to Liverpool on the boat when he was five years old. My mother is one of 10 and both were from very Catholic, very religious families. My father was the provider at home and my mum was a powerful woman, but life was tough. I had five brothers and it always seemed to me that my place was in the kitchen. There was no room for dreams in Liverpool. My mother was very creative and she loved dressing me up like a little doll. She used to put rags in my hair to give me <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/beauty/maximum-volume-12-hairstyles-to-inspire-your-curls" target="_blank" rel="noopener">curls</a>. Ever since I was tiny, I was obsessed with doing other people&rsquo;s hair. It was my creative outlet, my form of expression. As I got older, I&rsquo;d take the bus into the city and go to the salon supply shops and stock up on extensions and <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/beauty/the-8-hottest-hair-colours-for-a-stylish-winter-look" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hair colour</a>. I&rsquo;d practice every day on my friends at school and gradually I taught myself everything. Fashion felt like a dream world back then. My mum collected magazines &ndash; Vogue, Hello!, Cosmopolitan - and I&rsquo;d go through them all cutting out pictures and making manifestation boards. My bedroom walls were covered with images of my fantasy life. I had a very clear vision of travelling the world, working with the likes of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/princess-diana-hair-90s-sam-mcknight">Sam McKnight</a> and being a hair stylist for models and celebrities. At that time my dad had a very clear vision of me being a housewife, so weren&rsquo;t exactly aligned.

One day I was in my friend&rsquo;s hair salon and her Saturday girl called in sick. My friend asked if I could wash the clients&rsquo; hair. I ended up working every week and very quickly I became the go-to stylist for the girls who wanted their hair up for a night out. I loved it, the creativity and the <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/meet-the-ibiza-beauty-therapists-the-celebs-have-on-speed-dial" target="_blank" rel="noopener">beauty</a> and the transformation. I felt useful and talented for the first time and it felt powerful. The owner of the salon recognised my talent and she helped me to find a government-funded course to get accredited. The girl who trained me was an unbelievable colourist and that&rsquo;s when my passion really kicked in. She taught me everything and I still thank her to this day. That stylist gave me an incredible leg up and that&rsquo;s why I try and do the same for other people today. Colouring became my world. The salon I worked at had no budget so I got very good at mixing up colours with no proper ingredients. I was literally in a little colour cupboard, scraping the barrel. Over the course of my life I&rsquo;ve realised that when you&rsquo;ve got nothing, you get very resourceful.

After a couple of years, I decided to go on holiday to America. I went to San Diego and then to <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/fashion/celebrity-looks-coachella-2022-music-festival" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Coachella</a> and I saw all these gorgeous girls with their flower headbands and their plaited up-dos and I thought, &lsquo;what the fuck am I doing in a village salon near Liverpool?&rsquo; I had this incredible skill set; I had a devoted client list who would travel miles to see me, I knew all the cool kids on the scene and I had a vision. I already knew where I wanted to be and that was <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/romantic-ibiza-hotels-to-book-now" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ibiza</a>! I&rsquo;d been here the first time when I was 20 &ndash; my uncle came every summer and I&rsquo;d tag along. He was a bit of a legend and used to drive all the celebs around for Tony Pike. He&rsquo;d drive me and my girlfriends to <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/15-minutes-with-joseph-capriati" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Amnesia</a> in a Rolls Royce with a bottle of champagne in our hands. We thought it was mega! I guess I always knew Ibiza was where I was meant to be. I came home and I said, &lsquo;Mum, I'm not going back to work, I&rsquo;ve had enough.&rsquo; I just wanted to run away. I'd been through so much, so many struggles, and I was done with England. She told me to call my uncle and he said, &lsquo;come on then&rsquo;. I packed my bag; my dad gave me 200 pounds and I flew back to Ibiza. I literally hit the island running and landed a big celebrity job. That was eight years ago and the rest is history. 
I live in Ibiza full time now and I travel all over the world to work. This week I'm at London Fashion Week, next week it'll be Paris. Some mornings I wake up and look out across the valley and I can&rsquo;t quite believe I&rsquo;m here. But I pulled it off because I work hard, I&rsquo;m sharp and I&rsquo;m very, very driven.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m hyper-focused and I always show up and bring my best self. When you come from a background like mine, you can&rsquo;t leave anything to chance. I still pinch myself when I&rsquo;m backstage, doing catwalk shows for <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/hommes/balmain-men-s-fashion-week-olivier-rousteing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Balmain</a> in Paris or shooting magazine covers for Numero or flying to LA to do the hair of Hollywood stars. Girls from where I&rsquo;m from don&rsquo;t get these kinds of opportunities -&nbsp; I needed to be crystal clear in my vision because nobody was gonna do it for me. I&rsquo;m a very spiritual person and I have been since childhood. I have a very strong belief in karma - what goes around comes around. That&rsquo;s why I set up <a href="https://www.moda-management.com/">Moda Management</a>. I want to help other creatives to have access to the tools that weren&rsquo;t available to me when I was starting out &ndash; the support, the advice, the encouragement, the contacts. I did it the hard way and I wouldn&rsquo;t change a thing &ndash; it&rsquo;s made me who I am today - but if I can use my platform to smooth the way for the younger generation and help them achieve their potential, then I&rsquo;ll know I&rsquo;ve done my bit. Life isn&rsquo;t just about me being the best. It&rsquo;s about helping others shine their brightest, too.&rsquo;

People of Ibiza: Faye Browne

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