Pond caretaker’s son makes it big in UK beauty circuit

FELIZARDO de Vera with ABS-CBN president Charo Santos-Concio, a client in his London salon

AFTER LEAVING the fishing community of Calmay in Dagupan City in 1979, a son of a fishpond caretaker has gone a long way and has risen to become one of the top hairdressers in London.

Felizardo de Vera, 57, owns the Philip de Vera Hair Salon on Earls Court Road in London. His salon has become the favorite destination of visiting Filipino celebrities, performers in the stage play “Miss Saigon,” pageant contestants, and British women.

“When the Miss World beauty pageant was still held yearly in England, I was one of the contestants’ hairdressers and makeup artists,” De Vera, who is on vacation in Pangasinan, tells the Inquirer.

One of his most memorable moments was when beauty queens Evangeline Pascual and Margie Moran were at his salon together sometime in 1990.

“I felt so special. Imagine having two international beauty queens in my salon at the same time?” De Vera says.

But his road to success was not paved with roses, says De Vera. “It was a slow climb, full of tears and sacrifice.”

He wanted to become a nurse but his parents could not afford to sustain him through nursing school. So after a year, he shifted to a political science course, but he had to drop out after his third year to help his family.

“I worked in a beauty parlor, learning how to cut hair by observing the other hairstylists,” he says.

His career in the beauty business was starting to take off in Dagupan when London beckoned. He flew to the city of his dreams in 1979, a day after receiving an award as Pangasinan’s outstanding artist that year.

For four years, he worked as a waiter in London, from 6 to 9 a.m. He trained as a hairdresser from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Robert Fielding School of Hair and Fashion, where he was a working student, and then serviced Filipinos up to 1 a.m. the following day.

His first clients were maids and house cleaners, who composed a big chunk of Filipinos in England during those years.

When he had saved enough, he leased a small space on Earls Court Road for his salon. A few years later, when an adjoining space was vacated, he leased it to accommodate more customers.
The rest is history.

Today, de Vera’s shop is one of the top salons in London, and his clientele reads like a who’s who of the city’s pick and perfection in business, entertainment and style.