Let’s Show Up for Lexie Shay

Let’s show up for someone who has spent years showing up for all of us.

For anyone who knows Lexie Shay, you will know the kind of person she is. An incredible daughter, hairdresser, business owner, Australian FAME Team member, mentor, employer and friend who has spent her career investing in her team, her industry and the people around her.

But there is a part of Lexie’s story that many people may not fully know.

Six years ago, Lexie had established a successful career in the UK when her mum, Julie, was diagnosed with brain cancer. Lexie made the decision to leave the life and career she had built there and return home to Cairns to be close to her mum and support her through what would become an extraordinarily brave and incredibly difficult six-year fight against cancer.

And for those six years, Lexie has been doing both.

She has been supporting and caring for her mum through treatments and everything that comes with a long and devastating illness, while at the same time building an extraordinary life and business of her own.

Back in Cairns, Lexie created Vault Ninety One, a luxury, judgement-free salon where creativity, individuality and exceptional hair come together. She built a successful business, created jobs and opportunities, invested enormously in her team and continued to contribute to the wider hair industry through education, events, brands and the Australian FAME Team.

She kept showing up, while behind all of it, she was also a daughter helping her mum fight cancer.

In these final weeks, as Julie’s condition worsened, everything else had to stop. Lexie stepped completely away from the salon and the chair to be exactly where she needed to be: with her mum.

After six years of fighting, Lexie has now lost her beautiful mum, Julie.

She has been away from her business for approximately six weeks, and Julie’s funeral will take place on 25 September. But grief doesn’t end with a funeral.

After everything Lexie has carried, we don’t want her next responsibility to be figuring out how quickly she can get herself back behind the chair.

We want to give her time.

Time to grieve. Time to process what has happened. Time to be with her family. And time to return to work when she is mentally and emotionally ready.

The reality is that Vault Ninety One relies heavily on Lexie. She is not only its owner and principal stylist, but its largest contributor to weekly revenue. Her team is doing everything they can to keep looking after their clients and keep the salon moving, but without Lexie behind the chair they are currently generating less than half of what the business needs week on week to keep operating.

While Lexie is trying to comprehend losing her mum, she is also carrying the enormous pressure of worrying about her business, her team, their livelihoods and her clients.

We don’t want grief to have a financial deadline.

Lexie’s close friend Mika has already stepped in in an extraordinary way, putting her own busy salon business further south on hold to come to Cairns and help run Vault Ninety One, support the team and keep the business moving while Lexie cannot be there.

Now, we want to make that circle of support bigger.

Our goal is to raise $100,000 to give Lexie and Vault Ninety One breathing room over the coming months.

The funds will help bridge the shortfall created by Lexie’s absence, keep the salon operating, protect her team and their employment, ensure their clients continue to be looked after, and give Lexie the financial breathing room to return when she is ready, rather than when the money runs out- or the worst case scenario of the business potentially folding.

For the salon owners and businesses reading this, you will understand how quickly life changing circumstances can impact a business that relies heavily on its owner.

Lexie has spent years supporting this industry. She has invested in its people, its events and its education. She has created opportunities for young hairdressers and continually shown up for the community around her.

Now we have an opportunity to show up for her.

If you are a salon owner, hairdresser, educator, brand, distributor, supplier, industry organisation, client or friend, please contribute whatever feels possible. If you are a business or brand with the capacity to contribute more, your support could make an enormous difference.

And if you cannot donate, please share this fundraiser.

There is nothing any of us can do to take away the loss of Julie.

But together, we can protect what Lexie built while she was fighting alongside her mum.

We can keep the doors of Vault Ninety One open. We can look after the team she cares so deeply about. And we can give Lexie something incredibly precious right now: time to grieve without the fear of losing everything else she has worked so hard to build.

For six years, Lexie found a way to carry both.

Right now, she shouldn’t have to.

Let’s show up for Lexie.

With love,

Lauren McCowan and our community.