Propaganda

During the 1980s, Propaganda was not only one of the city’s trendiest salons, it was also a business synonymous with the revitalization of Old Strathcona, which was in the process of reversing its shoddy neighbourhood reputation. Carol Pashak started the salon in 1987 with her sister and friend, Gwen Lancaster, after finding an eye-catching nook just off Whyte Avenue.

“It was pretty much a dive back then, but we decided it was a better place than in a mall,” says Carol. “It really became trendy after. That part was fun and exciting and there were a lot of businesses that followed us afterward. A lot of us really came together to create a lot of excitement over there.”

The burgeoning music and arts scene, as well as the exploding worldwide success of the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival, provided Carol the ideal environment to experiment with her salon’s mission statement.

“There didn’t seem to be any other salons at the time that were doing too many edgy thing,” she says. “We saw there was a need to create something new and different, so we went for techniques like extreme colouring and avant-garde shapes.”