Menu
Capital Hair & Beauty Turns 60
Happy Birthday to us! This year Capital Hair & Beauty celebrates 60 years as a trade only wholesaler to the hair and beauty industry. Every day we are moving forward, but we thought this was a great time to share a little bit of Capital Hair & Beauty history...
Capital was founded in 1954 by Michael Vans Agnew, the father of our current owners Peter and Hamish. Michael provided a scissor sharpening service in Brighton, known as D.E.L. Supplies, and made deliveries on his push bike! We’ve come such a long way since then: we now have 34 stores across England, Scotland and Ireland plus a website that provides great products to hairdressers and beauty therapists, along with over 50 different training courses.
1960s & 70s
Michael provided self-service trade counters in Brighton and Catford, which operated until the early 1980s.
Peter and Hamish joined the team in the 1980s and our first Cash & Carry wholesaler outlet was created in Hayes, Middlesex. The company became known as ‘Capital,’ with a new logo to match – a reflection of the company’s expansion into London. We also started Sunday trading, making us the first to do so in the trade. Even today, Sundays are now our busiest operating hours! Stores soon opened in Hove, Kingston, Chadwell Heath (now Dagenham), Croydon, Bournemouth and Aldershot.
1990s
2000s
Capital Ipswich opened in 2001, followed by Norwich in 2002, and then Eastbourne and Wolverhampton in 2003. In 2004 – a big year for us – not only did Capital celebrate its 50th birthday, we launched our first e-commerce website in April (it’s changed a lot since then!) and also introduced our first training courses which encouraged customers to broaden their skills and stay ahead in the industry.
In 2008 Capital opened five new stores in Scotland. Glasgow became Capital’s 27th UK store in 2009, making us the country’s largest independent wholesaler! Crawley opened later in the year and we also moved our warehouse from the Dagenham store to a huge building in Burgess Hill, making big improvements to our stock levels and online service.
In 2010 Capital arrived in Ireland! Derry was the first to open in July, followed by our largest store yet, Dublin. Tunbridge Wells opened in 2012 followed by a second store in Dublin in 2013.
The start of 2014 saw the opening of Capital’s first superstore in Brighton, in a purpose built energy efficient building together with Head Office. Oxford became our 34th and latest store when it opened in April this year.
We are proud to say that we are still a family run and independent business, and we hope to continue this way for another 60 years!
Freelance Focus
Freelance Focus, is a one stop resource for anyone working as a freelancer or thinking of going freelance in the hair & beauty industry, which includes a FREE downloadable guide filled with advice, useful insights, experiences and tips (from experienced freelancers) to help you understand the steps needed to make the right choices for you.
