The Luxury Hairdresser Lands in Lanzarote: Stefano Motta

Some hands you recognise by the gesture alone. Stefano Motta's carry thirty-five years of the trade: they start in Rome, train in the industry's great houses, and end up in places where the hairdresser is not a detail but part of the scene. Exclusive stylist to the Princess of Jeddah. Years in the dressing rooms of Italian television — Rai, Mediaset, La7 — where a hairstyle has to hold under the lights, under a fan, and in front of a camera that magnifies everything.

Motta now lives in Arrecife and takes that trade around the island under his own name, Ayuna. There is no salon to go to: he is the one who arrives — the suite of a five-star hotel, the living room of a villa, the deck of a moored boat. With his studio in tow: he needs nothing of what he finds in the house.

Weddings, parties, evenings

This is where you find out whether someone knows their craft. People marry on Lanzarote in summer, outdoors, with the trade wind blowing from the north: an updo that would last a whole evening in Rome lasts twenty minutes here if you don't know what you are doing. Motta comes to the hotel, the villa or straight to the ceremony venue with all his equipment, and works on the bride and everyone around her — mothers, bridesmaids, guests — during the hours when a house full of people is the most chaotic place on the island.

The same goes for a private party, an important dinner, a photo shoot. The advantage is not the luxury of being waited on: it is time. Nobody travels, nobody loses an afternoon on the road, and whoever has to be ready at seven is ready at seven.

The craft

Cut and styling, colour and highlights, balayage, keratin treatments, extensions, updos and make-up for brides and events, men's barbering. Every service he performs himself, in person: he sends nobody in his place — a choice that costs him in diary space but keeps the name and the result in the same pair of hands.

He works seven days a week, 8am to 9pm, in Spanish, English, Italian, German and Arabic.

Where he goes

Puerto del Carmen, Playa Blanca, Costa Teguise, Arrecife, Yaiza, Teguise, and the marinas of Puerto Calero and Marina Rubicón, yachts included.

There is a Lanzarote you cannot see from the road: villas behind closed gates, boats tied up for a week at a time, people who come to the island to stay rather than to pass through. That part of the island does not go out looking for services, it has them brought in — and when the person arriving has thirty-five years of the trade in his hands, it shows.

The site: ayuna.vip

Ayuna is one of the brands that support Living Lanzarote.