By Vicki Prichard
NKyTribune Reporter
Long before he became a sought after hairstylist to the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Naomi Campbell, Marc Jacobs, and Leighton Meester, at his Three Squares Studio Salon in New York City – and before his chic hairstyles graced the pages of Vogue, Harper’s Bazar and Elle Magazine – Jordan Blackmore was a Kentucky boy with big dreams, and the talent and tenacity to make them come true.
Blackmore is the son of Nancy Jordan Blackmore and her husband Peter who was general manager of the Levi Strauss facility in Hebron for many years. The younger Blackmore grew up in Union, where he says he developed a great love for the outdoors and horses.
“It was a great place to be raised, and I still have a special place in my heart for Kentucky,” says Blackmore. “I have really nothing but the best reflections.”
The Ryle High School graduate was a young man of many interests – golf, baseball, cooking and wrestling.
Jordan Blackmore, a native of Union, and wife Andi Potamkin Blackmore.
“He was a Kentucky State Wrestling Champion – the first state champ from Ryle High School,” says Nancy Jordan Blackmore.
He also had a love of fashion and was ready to pursue it as a career. He enrolled at Northern Kentucky University for “a semester or so,” but said it didn’t work out. He’d hoped to begin designing clothes right away and found that wasn’t the case, he says.
When a friend suggested that he enroll in the hair school at Gateway Technical and Community College, he knew he’d discovered a new passion.
“I immediately liked it,” says Blackmore.
Under the tutelage of “an old-school hairdresser” at Gateway, he says he soaked up all the knowledge he could offer.
One day, while looking through a magazine, Blackmore essentially turned the page to what would chart the course for his future.
“I saw a picture of Oribe and I said, “I’m going to work with this guy.” Not only was he the best hairdresser of all time, he’s the only one to have an exhibit at the Met,” says Blackmore.
In 2004, during his spring break, Blackmore left Kentucky and set out for Miami to meet the legendary coiffeur, Oribe, at his renowned Miami salon, and would do his best to land a job in his salon.
Emboldened by determination to work with the best, he told Oribe that he would “answer phones – anything – to get a job” in the salon. All he needed was a foot in the door. After graduation, Blackmore began working at Oribe’s salon.
“So, I answered phones, but I knew once I got that that the rest was up to me,” says Blackmore.
It wasn’t long before Blackmore was given his own chair on the salon floor. He quickly built his own solid clientele, largely, he says, among the Miami nightclub scene.
“I did the hair of every cocktail waitress in Miami,” says Blackmore.
Blackmore’s talents earned him an opportunity to travel the world with Oribe, working in the top level of the fashion industry with designers such as Giorgio Armani and Louis Vuitton.
Union’s Jordan Blackmore is a stylist to the stars.
The significance of the opportunities that Oribe afforded him were not lost on Blackmore.
“I’m always so grateful for this experience because it would take a lifetime to do what I’m doing,” he says. “I love Oribe. He’s about humility and service – the client first. He is still one of the most impactful people in my life, and we see each other about four or five times a year.”
While experiences were a key to Blackmore’s success, a good dose of self-initiative is not to be discounted. Working as Oribe’s assistant on a Louis Vuitton photo shoot, Blackmore made a “bold move” while listening to a conversation between Oribe and fashion designer Marc Jacobs.
“I’m just standing there and Marc says, ‘I really want to color my hair blue,’” says Blackmore. “I knew blue very well, and I said, ‘I can dye your hair blue.’ It was a bold move on my part.”
He spent the entire next day coloring Jacobs’ hair blue. Suffice to say, he landed a client – an important one who remains with him to this day.
Meanwhile, while living in Miami, Blackmore had met a young woman named Andi Potamkin. She was bound for New York University, and the idea of living in New York City appealed to him as well, so the two made their move to the Big Apple.
“I was just starting to work with GQ (Gentleman’s Quarterly magazine) and that was great,” says Blackmore. “At the time, I didn’t have clients in New York so I would fly to Miami once a week and work off that salary.”
But with Marc Jacobs as a client, and work with GQ, Blackmore had solid footing. He decided his options were simple: work for someone else, or do his own thing.
In 2007, along with Potamkin and his business partner and Ryle High School friend, Niq Ellis, they opened Three Squares Studio.
“I took advantage of a bad economy and built my own shop,” says Blackmore. “We got lucky with the location, it’s just of the corner of a bustling area.”
Three Squares Salon was a team effort from the beginning, and from the ground up. Blackmore’s brother helped with the salon’s construction, as did Potemkin.
“She was in the studio every single day, helping me build floors and walls,” he says.
As for Ellis, he and Blackmore’s friendship goes back to his Kentucky roots. Ellis transferred to Ryle High School as a sophomore and, through college, worked the front desk of Michael’s School of Hair Design in Florence.
“He and I were roommates in Miami and we always said we were going to do something by the time we were 27,” says Blackmore. “We built the business in July and Niq came in September. He’s on the other side of the industry doing management and bookkeeping.”
Blackmore and Potamkin secured yet another partnership. Their stylish nuptials took place in a sunset ceremony at the Amangini Resort in Utah. Among the guests were actress Elizabeth Olsen and designer Brian Atwood.
Potamkin, an independent art curator and dealer, is the founder of the art and advisory firm, Le Mise. She curates the art in the gallery at Three Squares Salon. The couple lives in Brooklyn and recently purchased 80 acres in nearby Gardiner, New York, in the Hudson Valley where they’re constructing a green modern building with an insulated cement foundation that will include an art studio where the two can create art.
“My wife and I waited a long time to buy a piece of property,” says Blackmore.
His parents, who have since moved to Florida, went to New York to help with the construction.
“I have incredible parents, they are an amazing asset in every regard,” says Blackmore.
Mom thinks her son and her daughter-in-law are pretty incredible too.
“I am proud of him mostly for the kind of person he is and how much he loves his father and me,” says Nancy Jordan Blackmore. “He found a partner in life that is perfect for him, and what else can a mom and dad ask for?”
Jordan Blackmore’s expertise featured in national publications.
For Blackmore, his work avails him to many creative pursuits.
“It’s great to have a brand that is flexible,” he says.
In 2010, one of his clients, Dr. Gregory Brown, from Louisville, presented another opportunity for Blackmore.
“We were having a great conversation – he figured out I was born on a road in Verona that was named after his grandfather who had lived on the corner of the road – I literally got goosebumps,” says Blackmore.
As the conversation went on, Brown told Blackmore about a skin care brand he’d developed. Blackmore was intrigued and ultimately went on to develop a hair care line with Brown called Renessence. Its production is based in Louisville.
In 2011, Three Squares Salon collaborated with Nike, which involved a photo shoot that featured the salon’s logo on a shoe.
In May, he and his partners will launch a new hair care line called S.Oil (serum +oil).
The spotlight continues to shine on Blackmore and Potamkin, as their business acumen – their style and aesthetics – regularly make the pages and websites of art and fashion publications and blogs. Throughout the success and the publicity, Blackmore maintains a humble perspective.
“I do have moments when I say, “Wow,” I say “Wow” all the time, because it really is fun,” he says. “And the older you get, you realize, ‘I only get one shot at this.’”
Stay humble and work hard, is his approach.
“There’s a quote I like that says, “You’re never so far ahead that you can’t lose, and you’re never too far behind that you can’t win.”
