Amazon’s new salon may be full of technology – but the experience at a hairdresser’s is so much more

This is the last thing an industry that has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic really needs, writes Janet Street-Porter

The online retail giant plans to open a branch in Spitalfields, east London (Amazon Salon)

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, does not seem a very likely person to invest in the hairdressing business, but he’s just announced plans to open the first Amazon salon in Spitalfields, east London.

The fashionable home of Tracey Emin, Gilbert and George, St John Bread and Wine, and Brick Lane’s curry houses, will soon be offering customers a chance to use the latest technology to choose a new hairstyle.

It seems an odd choice. In my experience, Amazon does not pride itself on style but price-cutting. Spitalfields is where men wear carefully groomed beards and women clunk about in expensive clogs; where people dress as if they are rural craftspeople but often do no more hard labour than tap on keyboards.