A Cut Above

Stilisti Salon is in its 20th year on Newbury Street. Its founder and owner, Marisa Marino, remains as committed to her staff and her principles as ever.

Boston’s Back Bay has more than two dozen hair salons, and Newbury Street is home to half of these—a bounty of brands that range from ultra-high end to humble. As businesses go, hair salons are relatively straightforward to launch: You need a clean, inviting space; mirrors; chairs; and, of course, talent. The competition is fierce, though, and clients can be fickle. Like restaurants, many salons shutter their doors within a few years of opening. But a few are lucky enough to grow roots.

Stilisti Salon has owned the top of Newbury Street for two decades, a testament to owner Marisa Marino’s dedication to her clients and staff. “Our tagline from day one has been ‘luxury and style without the attitude.’ Back when I started, Newbury Street had a certain reputation. At the end of the day, I just wanted a beautiful place to work where I could treat people the way I would want to be treated,” she says. “Now you hear the term ‘quiet luxury’ all the time. That was our goal from the beginning. You don’t have to be loud and have a big ego to deliver high quality.”

At Marino’s spacious salon, clients receive plenty of personal attention. The vibe is professional but warm, and stylists embrace long-term clients as they come in. Staff turnover is low, especially for such a high-pressure industry.

Inspired by a Mentor
Marino credits Lisa Eid, a fellow stylist she met early in her career, with inspiring her love of client service. She worked under Eid on Newbury Street as a junior stylist after graduating Blaine hair school in 1991. Marino was awed by Eid’s easy rapport with people. “She never met a stranger. The way she spoke to people, I thought she’d known them a decade. After they’d leave, she’d tell me, ‘That was a first timer.’”

Impressed by Marino’s ambition and talent, Eid advised her to enroll in the Vidal Sassoon academy—the temple of precision haircutting—in Los Angeles for advanced training. There, she honed her skills under Sassoon’s strict geometric guidelines. Marino graduated in 1992 and came back to Newbury Street, where she continued to work alongside Eid, now on equal footing.

In 2000, she began renting a chair at 10 Newbury and happily worked there for the next six years, building her client base and perfecting her craft. An appreciation for quality seems to run in Marino’s blood. “My mother was an accomplished seamstress. When we bought clothes, she’d examine the stitching and the fabric. You don’t have to buy Chanel, but you can look closely at items to see how they were made. She taught us that by example.”

Marino is Portuguese by birth and grew up in Angola, which was a Portuguese colony for over 400 years until it gained independence in 1975. Multiple family connections in the United States paved the way for the Marinos’ family to emigrate, and they moved to Stoughton, Massachusetts, where Marino went to high school. Marino remains deeply connected to her Portuguese roots and returns to the Azores every summer for a month with her family.

The Leap to Ownership
In 2006, Marino felt it was time to make a move. “I asked my husband, ‘Do you want a stay-at-home wife, or a wife who owns a salon?’ And he said, ‘I don’t think I want you to stay at home,’” she recalls with a laugh. “I never wanted to own a salon,” she continues, “but you find yourself in a position where you need to do it. I wanted to train a new generation of stylists. Also, I had personally received a lot of bad haircuts. I didn’t want other people to have to have that experience.”

Marino found her current space on the Fourth of July weekend in 2006 and opened in November the same year. She was determined to create a supportive business in which young stylists could get the training they needed. She even permits trainees to experiment on her own hair. “I teach stylists to look for weight. Where does the weight fall—at the brow, cheek, jawline? What do you leave behind so there’s movement? What’s the balance of shadow and light when you apply color?”

Taking Care of Her Team
Newbury Street rents have only become more expensive over the years, and boutique salons often struggle alongside established chains. According to Marino, 70 percent of stylists are independent contractors. Part of the reason for this, she says, is that big salons don’t always invest in training. In contrast, Stilisti offers weekly trainings and sends stylists to hands-on classes and hair shows in New York, Milan, and similar locations.

Marino offers her staff health insurance and retirement plans, and stylists who have been with the salon for 10 years receive a custom necklace with a version of the salon’s logo. “Making the maximum amount of money possible isn’t what inspires me,” says Marino. “I love the personal interaction. I love watching young stylists grow. Watching them have a real career that allows them to buy homes and go on vacations, raise their families, and educate their children. It’s not just about hair.”

Claire Vail writes about food, art, and culture for MyBoston.