Menswear Style Podcast
The Menswear Style Podcast is a leading men’s fashion and menswear podcast exploring men’s style, clothing, grooming, lifestyle and the business behind some of the world’s most exciting fashion brands. Hosted by Peter Brooker, each episode features conversations with menswear designers, fashion entrepreneurs, innovative brand founders and industry experts from across the global fashion and apparel industry. Discover the stories behind established and emerging clothing brands, from the first idea and challenges of launching a fashion start-up to building a successful international business. Guests share their experiences and insights across fashion design, sustainability, manufacturing, marketing, branding, eCommerce, retail, social media and business growth. Whether you’re interested in men’s fashion and style, discovering new menswear brands, starting your own clothing label, or learning how successful fashion businesses are built, the Menswear Style Podcast takes you behind the scenes of the modern menswear industry. New conversations with the people shaping the future of menswear, men’s style and fashion.
Menswear Style Podcast
Adem Oygur, Founder of Adem London / Bespoke Hairstyling and Organic Products
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Belgravia stylist Adem Oygur’s journey began in a small town east of Istanbul, where he spent his childhood on his family’s hazelnut farm. Much of his time was spent planting, nurturing and harvesting hazel trees, although his true dream lay in hairstyling. At just 14, Adem made the bold decision to move to Istanbul, where he began his career as a barber.
Over the next 15 years, Adem forged a remarkable career in London’s busy hairdressing world, working backstage at fashion shows to create runway-ready looks under pressure. His practical, wearable cuts earned him a stellar reputation, combining artistry with effortless functionality tailored to each client’s unique features and lifestyle.
Today, Adem is permanently based in London, where his Belgravia salon has become a destination for discerning clients from Europe and beyond. His star-studded clientele includes tennis icon Roger Federer and royalty from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain.
Known for his ability to instantly understand and transform a client’s hair, Adem pairs his sharp instincts with meticulous attention to detail and an unwavering commitment to excellence. The salon itself is a serene haven, with towering plants lending it the feel of a “living salon.” Among its standout offerings is a men’s head spa, designed to rejuvenate the scalp while offering a luxurious and calming experience.
Central to Adem’s philosophy is his organic product range, Adem London, which revolves around the extraordinary properties of hazelnut oil, harvested from his family’s 150-acre farm in Divaniturk. Cold-pressed from 2.5kg of hazelnuts per litre, the oil is processed in the UK to create salon-standard hair and skincare products that are as sustainable as they are effective. His future plans include planting over 10 million new trees within the next five years.
In 2018, Adem’s exceptional talent was recognised on the global stage when he became a finalist at the International Hairdressing Awards, a prestigious celebration of creativity and skill. That same year, he won the L’Oréal Colour Trophy in the Afro hair category, cementing his place among the industry’s elite stylists.
From his humble beginnings on a hazelnut farm to styling some of the world’s most prominent figures, Adem Oygur’s story is one of passion, creativity and staying true to his roots. His Belgravia salon is more than a space for expert hairdressing – it’s a celebration of natural beauty, thoughtful craftsmanship and sustainable innovation.
Hello, welcome back to another episode of the Men's Wear Style Podcast. I'm your host, Pete Brooker. Today on the show, I am talking to London celebrity hairstylist, salon owner and hair care entrepreneur Adam Oiger. And Adam has also released a new product range which we'll get into it's all about the roots, his roots growing up in Istanbul and the hazelnut farms and the acreage that he has over there. He's now utilizing all of those natural elements and incorporating them into his new grooming range. And we're going to get all into that. This is Adam. He's going to tell you about his own story. The show notes we'll put over on menswearstyle.co.uk. You can find them over there. But here now is the brand founder, Adam Oiger. Well, it's my great pleasure to introduce Adem Oiger to the show. He is the founder of Adem London. How are we doing today, Adem?
SPEAKER_03I'm very good. Thank you so much, Peter. How are you?
SPEAKER_02You're in Belgravia, I understand. Yes. Would you class yourself as a barber, a stylist? How how would you best introduce yourself?
SPEAKER_03So I am an international hairdresser. So internationally style the hairs, all of type of the people from office to and ice jet and so on.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, I saw on your client list some royalty there and Roger Federer to name a few down there. So does Roger come down to your studio there in Belgravia, or do you have to go see him?
SPEAKER_03So uh I saw them and they like mostly their private places.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03I I used to um we look after them in my salon, and then now they try and stay in the hotels and in their private places. That's what I look after them.
SPEAKER_02Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know if Roger's really changed his hairstyle in the last 20 odd years. He's always had a lustrous head of hair, but it seems like it's always been like the middle parting. How how do you approach Roger's?
SPEAKER_03Just the just the side parting mostly, actually.
SPEAKER_02Right, move to the side.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. And as you know, he's a sportman, and then he all the time you know exercises and so on, and that's why he's kind of like freestyle, basically. But the good haircut in sits really well, so it doesn't matter what you do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I've always liked watching his hair flying around the court, yeah, even though he's got the bandana on sometimes. It's always like it looks great for photos, especially in slow motion when he's reaching for them shots. Yeah, yeah. Okay, listen, absolutely enough about Roger. Let's talk about you. Talk about your uh your journey to Istanbul when you were a child. I saw in your bio that uh is it that you moved there when you were 14, you were living in the UK and then moved to Istanbul. Tell me how that works.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so basically, um, I have to tell you something all beginning. Um, when I started my career at the age of 11, I moved from farm to little village. So my cousin uh barber shook, and then um I became a pretty good barber at the age of 14. And then uh my teacher always said to me, Adam, you need to study ladies' hairdressers. So then that time were not enough, ladies' salon, but then I have moved to um city where in example uh which is age of a 14. That's where I started hairdressing salon when I was 14.
SPEAKER_02Wow. And what year are we talking about here?
SPEAKER_03It was a 2002.
SPEAKER_02And are you on your own or do you have family with you moving there?
SPEAKER_03No, so basically a family um estate farm, and then I was on my own. I was with a family related where in Istanbul, so that's what I moved basically.
SPEAKER_02Talk me through the early stages of you learning your craft.
SPEAKER_03So it was a uh my cousin, and then so he got me to have to cut the hair until 14. And then also I was going to college, get my septica to be verber, and then my teacher said you have like the skills and talent and craft you have to start with hairdressing. That's where I start basically.
SPEAKER_02Do you teach people now as well? Like, especially people underneath you in your salon?
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes, yes. So we do, we do.
SPEAKER_02Are you teaching the same stuff that you learned when you were like the same practices, or have they kind of moved on since then?
SPEAKER_03Yes, or no. So now we are mixing for what I learn, what I over the years develop, and then a lot of people around the world I have been working last uh 10 years, where in London I get the chance to able to work for the other people around the world. So I learn so I'm different, and then um, so now um everything mixing together, and then I'm delivering to the my team basically.
SPEAKER_02So I'm curious, is this something that you continue to learn, or do you kind of hit like the black belt of barbarism? Not barbarism, being a barber, at like at your age, and now you're allowed to put all those teachings on, or are you kind of constantly learning and evolving and doing different things yourself there?
SPEAKER_03Again, uh, like you know, this is the experiences, the people uh you're working around and this oh basically.
SPEAKER_02And can you talk now about some of your products that you have there as well at Dem London? We've got the product range that's come out. Perhaps you can speak about some of those.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. So um I create a beautiful brand, which is just right of COVID, before actually COVID. Um, so main incredients come from my farm and and uh we produce hazina oil. So we grow hazina over 120 years, and so that's what I bring here in London actually where in Sussex we developed a product line. Um that they based in hazelnut oil and lavender, we're mixing together, and then when first oil came up in 2019 before the COVID.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh. Okay, and what products are we talking about here exactly?
SPEAKER_03So now I've got a hazen oil, uh, hair and body, face and neck, and shampoo and conditioner, and then tea tree, shampoo and conditioner, uh repair and mask, and then we have um what we have now, yeah, living condition as well. Yeah, so we have six, seven products now.
SPEAKER_02Right. And so you said you started this around about COVID. Did COVID kick this into the long grass initially, or did this catapult stuff you had time to work on it because everything was shut? How did it work out?
SPEAKER_03So that that was funny. So we production is everything on, and then we put everything in the warehouse, and then we're supposed to give to a lot of places, and then COVID shut everything. Uh and then yeah, my living room after a while is uh full of products basically.
SPEAKER_02So you're just sitting on boxes and boxes of your own?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, it was.
SPEAKER_02And how long does it take, you know, kind of COVID aside, if you if you can park that, like from the idea in your head of producing this stuff, and I guess it's very personal to you because you're bringing some of your own elements from your own family acreage here to put into these products. So this this must feel like it's come from a bloodline as such. And how long does it take from the idea in your head to getting the first bottle in your hand?
SPEAKER_03It was seven years. So reason was seven years. I I couldn't write find the right manufacture and then write packaging and then ingredients. So I was testing so many products, and then that's what I developed my product line because I'm very, very highly uh like a allergic to um chemical products, and that's what I created hazelnut oil.
SPEAKER_02I don't hear about hazelnut oil being in a lot of products.
SPEAKER_03Is this a relatively new and exclusive thing for you, or is it it is because I'm the first person in the planet actually bringing that hazelnut oil to cosmetic and beetle industry.
SPEAKER_02How did you know hazelnut oil was gonna work the trick? And what are the benefits that the hazelnut oil is gonna offer people that buy the products?
SPEAKER_03Um, when I was uh harvesting 2016, back into visit my farm back in Turkey, and then we try something, and then we normally use our food that we can put on your cellar, and then I get in some liter oil here, and then dear friend of mine, uh Richards, he actually tested, he'd been in the studio last 40 years, and then we find it like really beneficial for hair and body, and it's a healer oil and a very high uh vitamin E and also magnesium in there, which is our body needed. And yeah, so when you apply the oil on your hair or skin or your hair, it doesn't sit on the hair, it's absorbed beautifully. Wow, it's like a go. I'm sorry to say, yeah, it is like a look at gold.
SPEAKER_02And talk about Kismet, right? So you're learning hairdressing and how to be a barber and setting yourself out to be like an entrepreneur in your own world. Meanwhile, you have a farm that is growing from the ground, natural hazelnut, and it feels like a bit of fate. Do you ever think of it like that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Even though uh the product sits behind me bottle, I don't know if you've seen it, the brown bottle. So the people can actually drink that oil before I apply their hair.
SPEAKER_02Oh wow, that's important. Yeah, and I love hazelnut as well. I mean, like hazel hazelnut, hazelnut chocolate is. I was just thinking about this the other day. Do you remember the milk tray? Of course I did. And the man for milk tray and he kind of dives off a cliff and delivers it to the woman who surreptitiously invades her apartment and leaves a box of chocolates. I was thinking, there we go. I'm like, God, that I was watching this advert. I'm like, I loved the hazelnut chocolate, and I'd always, whenever my dad would bring them home, I'll be like, that's the one that I'm gonna rob him of to begin with.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So can you sell these separately, like in as well as the oils to as edibles?
SPEAKER_03So we are on stage actually, so we will be bringing uh hazelnut butter and oil and then milk we are in the process at the moment compared to a cosmetic we have.
SPEAKER_02And I read on your website that you're planting more hazelnut trees. You're planning for the future. This is something that you're investing in quite heavily, right?
SPEAKER_03Yes. So our land has a 4.8 million trees we have. We uh yearly spend in 2,000 new trees, but basically.
SPEAKER_02That's fine.
SPEAKER_03This is last 120 that my Gregor father started. Now we continue doing it.
SPEAKER_02So you mentioned there the products, the packaging, the labeling, and stuff like that. Do you outsource this? Do you kind of then have to do all your own research, or do you get a special team in to go, right? I've got the product, I just need to house it and I need to get this on the shelves. What's what's that process like, and who are you speaking to about that?
SPEAKER_03So at the moment, I am doing everything by myself and there is no middleman. Yeah, literally. So uh our solemn gravity are kind of flex too, and then first our consumer start, and then our client starts trying, and then they happy the product, and then they are tell friends, and then anyone needed, they come to first. But we didn't give anyone else, so we don't have a middle class.
SPEAKER_02And what about like the logos and the design and the graphic design and the websites? I mean, like it's it's a living, breathing thing this by the looks of things.
SPEAKER_03Thank you. So um the logo, I actually, when I was working on Motcom Streets, um, I was busy stylist working every day, uh, 10 to 11 hours, and then between client, actually, I was hand-drawing my logo and then send it to graphic design. Okay, I want this, this, this.
SPEAKER_02Wow, yeah.
SPEAKER_03No one knows what you have in your mind and a picture in your mind. Perhaps the delivery, and then people are built based on.
SPEAKER_02Damn, I had a bunch of questions that I forwarded on.
SPEAKER_03I don't think I've even asked you any of them yet.
SPEAKER_02I was just getting a little getting a little bit carried away. But well, can we talk about some trends? I mean, people listening to this and people that might know you will perhaps want to know what kind of things people are asking for in your salon, like when they come in, like put maybe celebrities or other hairstyles that come to mind. What what what's going on right now? What people are asking for?
SPEAKER_03So um, we now uh getting men's are getting slightly longer hair, even though that's a shaving, and then a lot of things are used to be like you know, uh the footballers always getting that like a fading and so on, uh like a barber's does. We don't do that much, but we work kind of like freestyle and what's the suitable individuals. Doesn't work for everyone, you know. Um so we work that if someone needs wavy hair, we recommend okay, this is the style you need to go. Kind of like a one-to-one in a consultation, not just like trans go everyone, right? I hope that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so it sounds like you're doing it holistically, trying to figure out what they want from their hair.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes, yes, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I'm not surprised that you're saying that long hair is making a comeback. I mean, I'm just looking at what I see on the telly, like Tom Cruise turning up, and he's like 62, but he's got great hair. Yeah, you know, but he he's trying to do the hair from Mission Impossible 2, which was like mid-90s. And now you see Daniel Craig, he's also like having his best hair days now that he's left Bond. He's got like this kind of really thick, voluminous long hair that he's wearing these days.
SPEAKER_03So I can tell you that. So in June, I uh been asked to do recommend what needs to be used. So you can also, yeah, uh on the common article because we recommend some products and uh what shampoo what oil used to, so that's why he's using uh growing his hair.
SPEAKER_00Really? What's it are you what you're he is he using your products?
SPEAKER_03So not, but there is advertised come and then they ask to us like what he needs to be, and then we advise them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so you advised his people, yeah.
SPEAKER_03That's incredible. If you if you think uh Daily Telegraph is already the article on the in June.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, okay. I've got a good one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so um uh I think Steven doing uh at the Daily Telegraph. So we come up on that article here.
SPEAKER_02This is where I need a producer for this show then where I'd get someone to pull up the article and then I could read it while we're talking to you. But anyway, I'm gonna you'll I'm gonna have a look for it and uh maybe we'll just talk offline. If I can't find it, you send it to me and we'll leave it in the show notes so other people can sure find it as well. But that's fascinating. Yeah, that's interesting. Finally, Istanbul. Yeah, do you get the chance to go back at all? Do you like holiday or is it work visits now because it's so connected to the brand?
SPEAKER_03Indeed. Uh, I was there last 10 days ago, actually. I was there. I was visiting my teachers who trained me, who actually helped me away. My hometown to come to Istanbul. And when I was 14, so my teacher and my bot boss, and I took them at dinner, so I visit them often, yes. Nice.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. Yeah, I bet that was quite plan.
SPEAKER_03Actually, um, we are talking at the moment if the things are work. Um, we're gonna open their uh second branch, they're gonna be working under my name, basically.
SPEAKER_02Oh, fantastic! Oh, that must that must mean quite a bit to you as well. So, like the homecoming.
SPEAKER_03I know uh you yeah. So that was a conversation, and then and they already accept it, and they're happy to work with under my name. Uh, actually, I shouldn't say my name, uh brand name. I build a beautiful brand, basically.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, it looks great on the website, and it's great to speak to you as well, Adem. Congratulations on getting the product range out. Adem.london is the place people go and have a look. And I recommend watching the video as well, kind of gives you the nine-minute journey of your childhood and walking through your like a your village and where you grew up and places like that. It looks fantastic.
SPEAKER_03Thank you. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_02And uh Belgravia, I guess, is the place if they and you people do walk-ins as in you can just walk and see when are you down?
SPEAKER_03Yes, so 95% of our clients are being air pre-book and like very people are not really walking, but they know where we are, and then they find us where when if they come.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, unless it's like Roger Federer walking in, then you'll be halfway through someone else's haircut and just go, right, get up. I've got I've got Roger waiting in the wings.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, why not? Yeah. So actually, uh one more coming next week, which is kind of a secret name. We will mention you another time.
SPEAKER_02Okay, all right. Well, uh, you can tell me again off mic, so I can I can pick.
SPEAKER_03Surely, surely.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, thank you, Peter.
SPEAKER_02Thank you for taking the time out, and uh I hope to see you speak to you soon.
SPEAKER_01You've been listening to the Menswear Style podcast. Be sure to head over to menswearstyle.co.uk for more menswear content and email info at menswearstyle.co.uk if you'd like to be a future guest on the show. Finally, please help support the show by leaving a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening to this podcast. Until next time.
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