The creative director and founder of Hairloom Salon, Calvin Gan, is a celebrity hairstylist well-accustomed to the glitz and glamour of the fashion industry.

At 38, Calvin looks like a man who has it all.

He grew under the tutelage of some of the industry’s best talents and is considered a trusted hairstylist by many celebrities.

His Instagram account is filled with picture-perfect photos of his family – wife, Jinni, their two sons and a Shiba Inu named Kukki – and of famous artistes, beautiful models and trendy behind-the-scenes crews.

Zane, 9, Lex, 7, Jinni, and Calvin at Lex’s 7th birthday. Zane and Calvin share the same birthday. Photo courtesy of Calvin Gan.

For his interview with Salt&Light, we are seated across the glass dining table in his modest home. Clad in an old-school white singlet and black Adidas shorts, Calvin has one leg propped up on his chair.

Apparently, there is more to this persona than meets the eye.

A 17-year-old from Malacca

Without the intervention of God, Calvin’s story would have been a run-of-the-mill narrative from rags to riches.

But Calvin testified: “God has watched over me my whole life.”

When 17-year-old Calvin from Malacca arrived in Singapore, he was not a Christian.

From a young age, Calvin learnt self-sufficiency and worked odd jobs for pocket money. He came from a humble background – his father lost his life in a car accident and that left his mother having to provide for four sons. She had no education and the family struggled financially.

Eventually, Calvin’s street smarts got him into a hair salon in Malacca run by a famous hairstylist. He started work as a shampoo boy and then as a full-time apprentice there.

His family strongly objected to his decision to go full-time in hairstyling. He recalled: “They all said I was rebellious, but I’m just someone who knows how to express himself. I follow my heart.”

Having started work at the salon in Malacca, Calvin’s dream was to make his mark as a hairstylist. So, when the opportunity arose to go to Singapore for work, Calvin seized it.

On his first day in Singapore, Calvin started looking for a job at the salons in Far East Plaza. He said: “I asked in every salon from top floor to the basement!” But no one would hire him.

Eventually, Calvin found a job as an assistant at a hair salon in Marine Parade.

Some beehoon and an egg

Life was hard.

Together with a flatmate, Calvin ate only two meals a day – some beehoon and one egg shared between two young men.

“Morning, and then at night, 10pm. We’ll eat together,” Calvin recalled. “We borrowed the oil, garlic and salt from another group of flatmates.

“We couldn’t afford more.”

As Calvin described what he went through, his voice cracked. “At that time, I didn’t know or even think of it as difficult. I only knew that I needed to hunker down and work hard. 

“This industry is not easy,” he shared. “People bullied and looked down on me, and some ridiculed me.”

At one job interview, a manager told him: “You’re just a Malaysian, you think you can make it big with just your pair of scissors?”

Calvin (back right) was hairstylist to celebrities.

“These memories still hurt,” Calvin confessed.

“I wished for success and for money and I sought blessings from every god there was – even child spirits in Thailand.”

Heavily steeped in idol worship, Calvin threw himself into his job and slowly rose through the ranks in the industry. 

In 2001, Anthony, who was Calvin’s shifu (mentor), set up a new salon at Millennia Walk and invited Calvin to join him.

They did well and soon Calvin was caught up in the bright lights of success.

Calvin (extreme right) was living his dream but deep down he was unhappy. “I was very fake and I wore many masks. It was tiring to depend on myself.”

It was a dream come true for the ambitious young man.

But Calvin said: “I would just flow with people’s philosophies to maintain good relationships … I was very fake and I wore many masks.

“It was tiring to depend on myself.”

A treasured possession

In 2004, God began to reveal Himself to Calvin.

That year, Calvin and Jinni, who is now his wife, started dating.

Jinni was one of the earliest clients whom he had befriended. She and her family were Christians who had worshipped idols in the past.

They often spoke to him about God, but Calvin, who was dead-set in his ways, merely gave them an obligatory hearing. To appease them, he often accompanied Jinni to church services.

He laughs as he recalled: “My mother-in-law got so frustrated! She told me, ‘Aiyah I pray for you behind your back lah. God will work!’

“‘You have a lot of questions right? You ask God, He will speak to you from this book.’ Then she gave me this Bible.

The Bible that Jinni’s mother gave to Calvin while he was still an unbeliever.

Calvin took out the well-kept Bible that his mother-in-law had used to “attract” him to the faith. It became a treasured possession – in one of his darkest seasons, Calvin would go to sleep with it on his chest.

“I read it every night, but only understood a little bit. But there was this funny reassurance that I felt when I read it.”

To church in a singlet 

One Sunday morning in 2006, having fallen asleep with the Bible half-open on his chest, Calvin awoke with a start. He knew he needed to attend the 8am Chinese service at church.

Without thinking, Calvin got up, brushed his teeth and left the house in his white singlet, black shorts and slippers.

He sat through the service. “I felt very peaceful.”

When the pastor ended the sermon with an invitation for the audience to accept and believe in Jesus Christ, Calvin stood up and went forward.

He said: “I didn’t want to, but felt like I was going to cry … I didn’t know why.”

And cry, he did.

“There was no way to stop,” Calvin insisted. “I really tried!”

Long after the hall had cleared, Calvin’s tears subsided, and he resolutely told the pastor: “I want to be baptised now.”

The pastor was surprised. Was Calvin sure? 

As one who used to practise idol worship, Calvin was especially sensitive to things of the spirit world. He knew that once he accepted Christ as his Lord, his life had to be different. Baptism was the first step in that direction.

Calvin recognised: “That was the point that I accepted Christ, but really, it was not the first time I had experienced Him – for the past three years, every single time I called out to God, He answered. God never gave up on me.”

He explained: “It is different from idol-worship. If you go and ask for a blessing, you are expected to return and ‘renew’ your blessings. You must return to ‘pay back’ the blessings that have been given.”

That afternoon, Calvin removed the charms he wore and those in his car. And in October that year, Calvin got baptised.

God’s steward

By any account, Calvin is a good steward with all that God has entrusted to him.

His hair salon, Hairloom, is celebrating its 10^th year of operations and is reaping the benefits of excellent work and investment in its staff.  

Calvin (in the middle, in checked suit) and his team’s photo on the website of Hairloom.

He closes shop on Sundays so that his staff get their Sundays off and have the opportunity to attend church if they want to – an anomaly in an industry known for its long, irregular hours.

“I’m the same chop-chop person, but I’m learning to be more caring now,” Calvin said. “I don’t want, just because I am fast, to cause those under me to be stressed and pressured to keep up, without due concern for them as people.”

Calvin also offers to pray for every customer who shares a need.

When asked if any of his customers have experienced God, Calvin laughs. It is almost as if the man wonders how anyone can question the power of prayer.

“Haaave,” he drawls. “Of course, have!”

Rejections are common too, but that is no matter to him – the man is only interested in making use of every opportunity to share about Christ.

He says: “In my industry, no matter what you do, you will always have your fans and critics. Everyone has an opinion. I used to care, but now I don’t.

“The important thing is that as many people come to know God as I can share.”

His staff can testify to that.

Chuckling, Calvin said: “I know their pattern! I used it before. It is one ear in, one ear out.”

But Calvin is undeterred; he has been in their shoes. “I also tell them that I pray for them.”

Exactly what his mother-in-law used to say to him.

When asked how he would encourage others who are struggling in the fashion and beauty industry, Calvin paused before he said: “Do the things you should be doing as a Christian.

“There are many things not to do, but the opposite is simple: Stay faithful to God. Really, sincerely, listen to the needs of those around you and pray for them. That’s the most important.

“My prayer is not only for my family and my needs, but for the people around me and Singapore.”

Beyond the stylish crop of hair and easy-going mannerism, Calvin is a man who has known pain. He has experienced the intense world of fashion and understood the futility of human effort.

His story brings to mind Psalm 20:7: “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.”