ANTONIA Cometa has spent two decades behind the scenes, mixing the exact shade of honey, chestnut or slate that makes a runway look land under hot lights. Her colour has appeared at Prada, Dior, Burberry and Loewe, alongside hairdressing’s biggest names.
Now, in a calm, living-room-like salon named TONE on Soho’s D’Arblay Street, she brings that precision to private clients. Here, she talks about luxury as subtlety, why personality matters as much as skin tone, and her quiet rebellion against a beauty industry that insists on fixing us rather than flattering what’s already there.
You’ve built a career working alongside some of the most influential names in fashion and beauty. Looking back, when did you first realise that hair colour could be a form of creative expression, rather than simply a beauty treatment?
It was at Vidal Sassoon in Covent Garden. Sassoon taught you to think about hair as shape and structure, and I started to see colour the same way: it could carve out a cut, change how light falls on a face, or shift the whole mood of a look. The real turning point was my final creative presentation when I qualified as a technician. I was playing with spectrums of colour and had the freedom to let my imagination run wild. I knew from then that this was my calling. After that, I never saw colour as just covering grey or adding highlights. It became a way of telling a story.
Your work moves between the worlds of fashion, celebrity and everyday beauty. How does your approach change depending on the person sitting in your chair?
The setting changes, but the person never gets treated differently. I’ve never treated two people differently, and I never will. On a show or shoot, I’m serving a vision: the designer’s or photographer’s story, and the colour has to work under lights, on camera, for that moment. With a private client, the colour has to grow out well, suit their skin in daylight and feel like them on an ordinary Tuesday. Either way, the key is understanding what someone really wants and helping them achieve it. If they don’t know, that’s where an in-depth consultation comes in, and I’ll give my professional advice on what would look great on them and suit their lifestyle.
Hair Colour by Antonia Cometa | Tom Ford by Haider Ackermann
Your work has featured across houses including Prada, Dior, Burberry, Loewe and Tom Ford by Haider Ackermann. How do you approach the distinct visual language of a fashion house without losing your own creative instinct?
Every house has its own codes, and my job is to understand them deeply before I touch anything. I’ll look at the collection, the references, the casting, and talk it through with the key hair stylist. Working with people like Guido Palau, Eugene Souleiman and Anthony Turner, you learn that the best work is a conversation. My instinct comes in through the detail: the exact tone, how it reflects light, whether it feels real or deliberately not. The house sets the direction; I bring the precision.
How much of choosing a colour is about understanding someone’s natural colouring, and how much is about understanding their personality?
Both, but they do different jobs. Natural colouring tells me what will flatter: skin undertone, eye colour, the base the hair is growing from. Personality tells me how far to push it. Two women can have identical colouring, and one wants something quiet and polished while the other wants to be noticed. If I only read the skin tone, I’d get the science right and the person wrong. The conversation in the chair matters as much as the colour chart.
What makes a hair colour feel truly luxurious?
Subtlety and health. Luxury colour doesn’t look “done”; it looks like the best version of your own hair. It has dimension, it moves, it catches the light softly, and it grows out gracefully, so you’re not a slave to the salon. And the hair has to feel good. If the condition isn’t there, no tone in the world will look expensive.
Tone Studio in Soho
What was the idea behind TONE Soho, and what did you feel was missing from the traditional salon experience?
I never really felt at home in a conventional salon. They can feel rushed and impersonal, with clients sitting in a production line. I loved the idea of a space with the feel of a living room, private and calm, but with all the luxury of a high-end salon, focused entirely on colour. And right in the heart of Soho, where there’s such a strong energy and sense of community. TONE is also a home for independent stylists, a creative studio where talented people can do their best work without the politics of a big salon.
How did you want people to feel when they leave TONE Soho?
Like themselves, only more so. I want them to catch their reflection in a shop window on D’Arblay Street and feel a little lift, not because they look like someone else, but because they finally look the way they always felt they should.
Tone Studio in Soho
What have your clients taught you about beauty that the fashion industry perhaps hasn’t?
That beauty is lived in. Fashion is about the image, a single perfect frame. My clients have taught me that real beauty has to survive weather, school runs, work, ageing, life. They’ve taught me that confidence matters more than perfection, and that a woman who feels at ease in her hair is more beautiful than any trend.
Daisy Edgar-Jones Hair Colour by Antonia Cometa
If you could change one thing about the way we talk about beauty, what would it be?
I’d stop talking about it as fixing things. So much of the language is about correcting, hiding, anti-ageing. This might sound controversial, but I also think trends are largely a way to sell more products and to make people want to look like someone else. I’d love us to focus on exploring our own identity instead: enhancing what’s already there and celebrating our own features. Grey hair, natural texture, the colour you were born with. These aren’t problems to solve, and the goal isn’t to look like everyone else. They’re the starting point.
by Imogen Clark
35 D’Arblay St, London W1F 8EY