Why SHY?

I was told I was shy a lot when I was a kid. It became one of those descriptions that gets repeated often enough that everyone stops asking whether it is true.

Looking back, I think I was quiet in places where I did not feel entirely at ease, and much less quiet when I did. That distinction stayed with me.

Years later, when I was thinking about the kind of place I wanted to build, SHY felt right.

Where the name came from

The name is partly about that childhood label, but it is also about the people who work here. SHY is full of people who have chosen less obvious routes. A piercer, a tattoo artist, a nail artist, a massage therapist, an acupuncturist, a facialist, artists who exhibit here, and people who have built careers around skilled, hands-on work.

They each have their own story, but many understand what it means to choose work that asks you to trust your own instincts and build something around your particular skill.

There is a kind of bravery in that. Quiet bravery, sometimes.

It is also about the person walking through the door

Beauty, piercing, tattoos and wellbeing can all make you feel exposed in different ways. You might be talking about your skin. You might be taking your clothes off for a massage. You might be trusting someone with your face, your brows, your ears or a permanent mark on your body. You might simply be walking into a place where everyone seems confident and you are still finding your bearings.

I wanted SHY to be somewhere you can arrive exactly as you are.

You can say you are nervous. You can ask the same question twice. You can say you are unsure what jewellery suits you. You can change your mind before a treatment starts. You can come in for a facial and be completely new to active ingredients. None of that should make you feel out of place.

The people matter as much as the room

The studio being calm, clean and beautiful is important to me, but that only works if the people inside it make you feel at ease too.

Technical skill matters. So does warmth. So does how someone speaks to a nervous client, how they treat the rest of the team, whether they bring calm into the room, and whether they understand that someone may be handing over more trust than it looks like from the outside.

Finding the right people for a space like this takes care. I take it seriously because the atmosphere is part of the service.

A studio with its own shape

I have never felt especially drawn to one fixed idea of what a beauty salon, clinic or tattoo studio should look or feel like. SHY was my attempt to make a place that takes the best parts of beauty, wellbeing, piercing, tattoos and retail and lets them live together.

I wanted high standards with warmth. Creativity with calm. A place beautiful enough to feel inspiring and easy enough to breathe in when you walk through the door. Somewhere you can get a piercing, a tattoo, a treatment, a massage, your nails done, buy a gift, see an exhibition or just come in and ask a question.

That is really the point of the name. SHY is for the part of you that might hesitate at the door, and for the part that relaxes once you know you are somewhere you can be yourself.

Also, SHY looks very good on a hat.