Haircuts from Outer Space
Neither a barbershop nor a salon, &Space. is a new hair studio creating community, art, and futuristic haircuts.
Steel-beamed LED lights hung from the open ceiling, illuminating the gray concrete floors. Silver pipes marked their path along the walls. Bonsai and pots of eucalyptus were littered across the room. I had just walked into a solarpunk oasis.
A woman with frizzy, tufted hair named Pinky Poon rises up from her stool, saying, “Welcome!” Standing next to her is a man with alien-like tattoos, holding an electric razor in hand, cutting a client’s hair.
&Space. is hardly your usual barbershop or salon. In fact, it is neither. The venue, located on Wellington Street, is a hair studio that serves clients regardless of gender. The current team, which includes Pinky and five other hair stylists, look less like hairdressers, and more like an intergalactic space crew or a cool friend group from 100 years into the future. Toby Nguyen, a stylist, has permed and wavy hair, with light green Billie Eilish-style highlights near her fringe. Their other team members don hair dyes of all colors and perms of all shapes, and their outfits look like they were pulled straight from the latest issue of HYPEBEAST.
With her arm wrapped around Pinky’s shoulder, Toby says, “We are all stardust.” Continuing the thought, Pinky adds, “Here, we are all one.” Indeed, if every element in the human body comes from a supernova, why bother catering a hairstyling business to a single gender?
It’s easy to see how &Space.’s futuristic branding and commitment to radical inclusion fuse so effortlessly. After all, science fiction writers like Ursula K. Le Guin and Samuel R. Delany imagined a world without categories like race or gender. Outside the solarpunk oasis of the hair studio itself, the venue’s logo protruded from the entrance. Smooth, sharp, and shaped like a shooting star, it stood apart in a street filled with Cantonese hawkers and roast goose restaurants that had been there for decades.
Since opening &Space. in January 2025, stylists like Pinky have been actively working to create something new. “I don’t just want to keep copying [other hairstylists from the past],” Pinky says. While millennial-era barber shops in the 2010s were stuck recreating retro styles through brick walls and barber poles reminiscent of the 1920s, Pinky “want[s] to make something different.”
“I feel like barbershops have too many limitations, where you just copy and paste,” Toby adds. Most barbershops and salons in Hong Kong give clients a menu of choices: A prescribed list of approved hairstyles and specific language determining side length (0-8) and tapering (low to high). “Modern barbershops have their menu. But we kind of say, ‘Oh, pick your ingredients and we’ll cook a meal for you.’”
“We shouldn’t set the haircut for our client—that’s our concept,” says Pinky. “You can create whatever haircut you want.” Stylists at &Space. collaborate with clients to shape their vision, guiding them with their expertise to bring their desired haircut to life. What this means is that haircuts at &Space. are often more experimental.
Jonah Chao, a regular client of Pinky’s, says, “Their cuts are creative. Lots of really cool long and mid-length styles with color and perms are in their portfolios, rather than the classic fade on the sides and back … that other studios specialize in.”
But what &Space. really offers is a new proposal: Hair studios are more than a place where people trim their hair—they’re also a space for creation. The venue currently collaborates with MOTH Agency, Hong Kong’s largest queer nightlife collective. On &Space’s second floor, there’s a DJ booth which MOTH frequently to livestream sets from its roster of talent. The space is also used to host a four-hour DJ-ing workshop completely free of charge, where aspiring DJs can start learning how to mix tracks and adjust tempos.
“Hong Kong is really not a boring place,” says Pinky. “[But] everywhere is so small. [Young people] just need a space to let them play around.”
“There are so many people who do art, music, tattoos, fashion. Hong Kong has a lot of young talent, they just don’t know where to go,” Toby adds.
The “space” in &Space. can also denote community, a place where people support one another, like the hair studios that shaped Pinky’s early years in the industry. Her journey into styling hair began as a teenager, when she struggled in school because of undiagnosed dyslexia. It was a Christian social worker who owned a salon that supported her then. Eventually, Pinky was inspired to pursue a similar path. After dropping out of high school, her first job in the industry was a generous paid apprenticeship at a barbershop. She’s soon hoping to return the favor, educating younger people who would like to join the industry.
People often overlook how important hairdressers can be for communities, Toby says. “We’re everything all at once. We’re like therapists. I know things my clients would never tell their parents, or girlfriend/boyfriend.”
Eventually, “It’s going to be the coolest hangout spot. A place where so many cool people come together and do cool things,” she adds. Pinky and Toby plan on organizing more parties for Hong Kong’s creative community, as well as talks for stylists to come together and learn from one another.
In the future, they look forward to hosting visiting hairstylists from abroad, who will lead workshops and offer guest haircuts—mirroring how a community radio station features an overseas DJ or a local art gallery showcases a foreign artist’s work.
I visit the studio again, one week after my initial interview. Pinky is hard at work, dyeing a new client’s hair red. Her own hair had changed in shape too, now gently flowing downward from her head, instead of forming tufted strands. “I just got my hair permed!” she says, with her curls were more pronounced. New leaves and vines hang all over the pipes, moss-coated rocks are now in crevices throughout the venue. Behind me, I overhear Toby mention an upcoming line of &Space. products. Already, so much had become new.
