Sam James Cox first became interested in wig making at the age of 15 after watching YouTube videos and teaching himself the process. “The first wig I ever made was using the netting from a wedding dress, some hair I bought from Primark, and a hook to do highlights with,” he laughs, as we talk on the phone. From there, he went on to do work experience on the tour of Hairspray The Musical at 17, until he was offered a full time position in the West End Theatre, and so moved to London and never looked back. “I worked my way up through theatre from being an assistant to the head of department, and alongside that, always doing my wig making.” It was only then that the wigs began to take over. “I started to get a lot of requests, many from films, and essentially I had a mini studio in my bedroom.”
Fast forward to now, Sam is moving into his fourth studio which is a three-storey building in Tower Bridge.
Was it something he always wanted to do? Growing up in Devon, wig making and styling wasn’t advertised; Sam tells us that back then he didn’t know it was a career he could consider. “I was always quite creative – my mum was an artist, and she had an art room, so I was always making things. From that first video, something stuck in my brain and I thought, if someone isn’t going to teach me then I’ll teach myself, and I had the drive to do it.”