Our Story

The birth of this crazy idea, which is the opening of our hairdressing academy, is the result of several small but determining events.  

One beautiful summer evening, Chantale and her client were discussing the importance of performing a profession that we are passionate about in life.  Chantale, who is passionate about hairdressing, expressed her discouragement towards the few young people who opt for hairdressing as a career choice.  She told her that we had a young assistant who had the passion and enormous talent for hairdressing, but that her entourage advised her to choose another route, given her academic talent.  The client was filled with compassion for Chantale, but knowing the young assistant in question, she still added:  

-Chantale, you have to understand that she is very strong academically! She needs to go to university! 

At that moment, Chantale had a strong desire for things to change, that this perception of our profession needed to be changed and that Shanthaly was for it! But the process was not yet clear.  On a Tuesday morning, when we had a meeting with our business coach, he asked us to come up with a lot of ideas, no matter how crazy they were, to get out of our existing business box and find new solutions.  During this brainstorming session, Chantale launched :  

-Open our own hair academy!   Nathalie looked at her with her deprived look and replied: 

-You're crazy!  Well, let's see!  We can't do that!  It wouldn't work in Embrun! Our coach then looked at us and said -Why not?  What's stopping you? Don't forget that the best schools in the world in many sports are located all over the world, often in smaller villages than Embrun!  Be the best in your industry and your future students will come from all over to become the best in turn! It was at that moment that we both realized that a new stage in our careers was beginning.  The road to the opening of SHANTHALY ACADEMY was filled with challenges, new knowledge, resilience, and most of all, the joy of passing on our 25 years of experience and our passion for this beautiful industry to a future generation!