PRESS RELEASES

Hair stylist Stefania Buonomo left Rochester in 1997 for one reason. “I wanted to make a lot of money to help out my dad. I wanted to buy him a car and send him away on vacations.”
Cosmo Buonomo, once a marble cutter in his native Italy, had put in long years as a mechanic at Gleason Works, and Stefania worried about his health.
She headed to New York and landed a job at Frederic Fakkai’s Upper East Side salon, a rarefied world of the $365 haircut and glitterati clientele—Meryl Streep, Jessica Lange, Debra Messing, Uma Thurman and others. As the apprentice, Buonomo learned to read the cryptic signals of the master stlylists.
“ Sometimes it wasn’t even in words,” she said as she lifted her arm, imitating a sudden dramatic gesture that translated to, “Blow-dry long straight hair perfectly flat.”
Soon Buonomo was tending the waves of supermodel Melania Knauss (now Mrs. Trump III) and Christie Brinkley, sprucing up Maury Povich, executing precision snips to Regis Philbin’s nape, escorting Duran Duran lead singer Simon Le Bon to just the right bottle of apple cider clarifying shampoo. By May 1998, she was making house calls to the likes of Rosie O’donnell, who watched on TV as she won an Emmy (the cut was temporarily suspended for victory cries).
Styling wasn’t all. Buonomo also had to look the part. “I had to be an example of how people want to look,” Buonomo said. “But I couldn’t afford the Prada or Tod.” One client wanted to know where Buonomo got her top. “I didn’t want to tell her, but she kept asking, ‘Where did you get that great top?’ I told her I couldn’t remember, and the next thing I know she’d jumped up and grabbed the neck of my shirt so she could read the label. The she asked, ‘What’s H & M?’”
But one day, Buonomo had an epiphany. “I was walking across the street to buy bottled water, and within the 10 feet I walked, I was surrounded by an ambulance siren, a jackhammer, four cars beeping and a fire truck racing by. I was literally shaking by the time I crossed the street, and that was it. I decided I had to leave.”
She flew to Costa Rica to study aromatherapy. When she returned, she decided to come back to Rochester.
She packed up her lower East Side apartment, a few blocks from the World Trade Center, and started driving early on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. The whole way, she never turned on the radio. “When I got to Dad’s house he was crying,” she recalled. “He hugged me and said, ‘I knew you’d be okay.’”
After the shock of 9/11, Stefania was happy to be living with the man she calls the love of her life. But within a few months, her father would be diagnosed with lung cancer. A few months after that, he died.
“I never felt so alone and desperate,” she said. Once again she took to the road. She traveled to Colorado, worked with spiritual teachers, fasted and meditated. Then she returned to Rochester, deciding this time to stay.
Today, Stefania is the owner of Metro Salon on Gibbs Street, where she works with her sister Marianna—“something my father always wanted”, she said. She plans to mix a little of Manhattan’s edge with a holistic approach she developed out of the experience of her father’s death and her spiritual journeys. She has learned that beauty isn’t just about the right cut. “It’s all about feeling good inside, to feel good by connecting. Since, I’ve come home, I’m connecting.”

[Back to Top]

Look, I know you’re hot. You know you’re hot. But how to show everyone else how very hot you really are? Go see Stefania. She used to handle celebrity hair in New York City with Frederick Fekkai and she moved here recently to be closer to her family. Fred’s loss is our gain. At Stefania’s sleek, relaxed Metro Salon on Gibbs Street, you can get a cosmopolitan look at a hometown price. Plus the music selection—from Dolly Parton to the Flock of Seagulls and beyond—even has those Eastman School kids talking.

[Back to Top]