Mark O'Keefe
DUBLIN STYLIST Mark O’Keeffe of Brown Sugar was given some space in the Sindo’s ‘Life’ magazine last month to hype up the hairdressing industry here and give himself a few pats on the back. There was no room, however, for any details about his failed companies.
Mark sees himself as a star player in a world-class environment. It turns out that this country “has one of the best hairdressing industries in the world. Whether colouring, cutting or styling, we stand head and shoulders above many of the global epicentres of hair and fashion”. But, O’Keeffe doesn’t take all the credit for the dizzying heights of Ireland’s success: “Although I own and run some award-winning salons and invest heavily in training at Sugar Culture, neither myself nor any of my contemporaries can take all the credit for the current standard of hairdressing in Ireland.”
What Mark did bring to the dreary local clientele was a dash of pzazz, offering no less than “a super-luxe hair and make-up experience”. He also knew a good spot when he saw it and although there is a Brown Sugar operation in Ranelagh, D6, he realised that the area around South William Street in D2 “could be Ireland’s answer to a style hub like Covent Garden”.
When he opened his business back in 2005, O’Keeffe was “very fortunate to be embraced by media, celebrities and the general public alike. I like to think that we brought hair and make-up to a level never before seen in Ireland”.
Despite O’Keeffe’s apparent enormous success, the company he incorporated when establishing Brown Sugar in 2005, Callokee Ltd, collapsed into liquidation in 2017 with (mostly unsecured) creditors owed a less than stylish €700,000. The listed directors were Mark and Meg O’Keeffe. Another O’Keeffe entity that ended up in tangles was Caesar & Co Coiffeurs Ltd, which was liquidated in 2015, with unsecured creditors owed €220,000.
There was little let-up in O’Keeffe’s drive for expansion. He opened Brown Sugar in Blackrock and Sugar Cubed (a sister salon designed to appeal to the yoof). On foot of the “explosion” in male grooming, O’Keeffe opened two Sugar Daddy locations, while next up will be NHO (New Hair Order), which is owned by Brown Sugar and stylist Mark Byrne.
The easing of the lockdown can’t come soon enough, and Mark was one of the coiffeurs who expressed frustration at the growth of the black economy of home ‘dos’, going so far as to demand that a confidential hotline be set up for people to inform the taxman about what he called “rogue” stylists.
At the time, O’Keeffe told his fans in the Sindo that “something has to be done”. He noted, “it would only take catching a handful to scare others away”.
The D2 coiffeur also had advice for the Revenue on how to go about its business, suggesting that they snoop on Instagram: “There are people there who are easy to find if they just searched key hashtags and trawl through people offering home hair services in Ireland”.
Although Mark’s title on his LinkedIn page is managing director of Brown Sugar, he is not actually a director of any of his current operating companies. At the end of December 2016, he stepped down as a director from Brown Sugar Hairdressing Ltd, Sugar Cubed Hairdressing Ltd, Sugar Daddy Barbering Ltd, Sugar Culture Hairdressing Ltd, and Sugar Cube Institute Ltd, as well as the overall holding company, O’Keeffe Hairdressing Holdings Ltd.
The listed director for the various O’Keeffe companies today is Jil Thompson, although Mark O’Keeffe does hold 100% of the shares in the group holding company.
O’Keeffe previously enjoyed what he called “a real rock ’n’ roll lifestyle” after Brown Sugar opened its doors at the peak of the Celtic Tiger boom. The mouthy stylist even developed a thing for shoes and last year told the Indo that he had “almost 100 pairs of runners and the same with shoes … I’ve a bit of a shoe fetish”.
No wonder he’s raring to hit the ground running after lockdown.
