Neither is a national title

Gavin Petersen led the Utes to a 19-12 record, just barely missing out on the NCAA Tournament last season.

NEW YORK — When Reagan Baker-Jaillet was a teenager, she moved from small-town Tennessee to small-town Utah. Now she’s rolling out the red carpet for the grand opening of her salon in what some may call the biggest city of them all — New York City.

Baker-Jaillet is the owner of House of Reagan in SoHo, a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. Her salon is stationed in a 120-year-old loft space that she transformed into a “whimsical, funky and upscale” establishment where she specializes in cutting and styling. Her niche aesthetic is “bedroom hair,” which she is in the process of trademarking.

Prior to opening her salon, she styled hair and modeled at New York Fashion Week, worked on projects for Netflix, Comedy Central, and “Saturday Night Live.” She’s been featured in several magazines, including Rolling Stone, Cosmopolitan and Vogue. She was also cast on an HBO dating show in 2023. Her transformation over the years, she said, can be attributed to learning at a young age how to reinvent herself.

“I’m the fifth out of six children in my family, and the youngest daughter,” Baker-Jaillet told KSL. “We moved from East Tennessee to Cedar City when I was in the middle of eighth grade. Before moving to Utah, we were all homeschooled, so Cedar City was really my introduction to being around kids my age and socializing daily. It was jarringly intimidating at first, but I learned to embrace the challenge of being a fish out of water.

“Most of the kids didn’t even know I hadn’t attended traditional school up until that point, or how deathly shy and socially inexperienced I was,” she continued. “By high school, I had mostly adapted and got involved in sports, after-school clubs, cheerleading, and was even voted into prom/homecoming court. I learned then how much I love the challenge of reinvention.”

The draw to glamour also came at a young age, as she watched her mom and older sisters put on makeup. She said that when she moved to Cedar City, she noticed that many of the girls in her class were “fearless” in the way they presented themselves, and she felt inspired.

“Growing up, I always loved watching my mom and sisters get ready and then going through their products when they weren’t home,” she said. “I practiced using their hot rollers and potions on myself and immediately noticed how elevated and great it made me feel. When I got to Utah, the girls were over-the-top and fearless with the way they did their hair, nails and makeup. I loved it.”

After high school, Baker-Jaillet attended Evan’s Hairstyling College in Cedar City and discovered that she not only loved cosmetology but also the diverse people she met on the job. This caused her to want to see more people and more of the world. To do that, she took a job as a nanny in New York and used that as a springboard to explore her new world.

“Cosmetology offered everything I loved — access to interesting conversations with a wide variety of people all day, and lots and lots of glamour,” she said. “I have to say, it was a fabulous choice.

“When I moved to the city in 2005, I was in awe of the surprises and thrills I came across at every corner,” she added. “Whether it was seeing an elderly person covered head to toe in tattoos, walking down the street, or wandering into some random store and finding an eccentric shop owner selling completely unrelated items, there was so much edge and backstory wherever you went.”

As she immersed herself in her new environment, with a set of hair-styling skills she had no way to capitalize on, she drew on another love that came naturally — writing. In the new age of blogging, she launched Hairdresser on Fire, which she said was a “huge part” of her career journey.

“I was a junior stylist with no clients yet, and as an early beauty blogger, I was able to combine my love of writing with what I was building day-to-day in the salon,” she said. “It catapulted my credibility as a beauty expert and helped me grow my clientele significantly. There are so many talented artists out there; writing about beauty set me apart.”

Staying true to who she is at the moment has allowed Baker-Jaillet the chance to create new versions of herself and the spaces to match. House of Reagan, she said, is very representative of who she is today.

“Out of all my creative endeavors, building this space has been the most challenging, but the most rewarding of all,” she said. “I’ve dreamt it up, creative-directed, and paid for almost all of it entirely by myself.

“This project has conditioned my mind to think beyond one-hour haircut increments and toward the bigger picture. I’m not always sure of what the end goal is, but I’m brainstorming and dreaming about what’s next all the time, and having a physical space allows me to jump on and execute those ideas right away.”

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As a big-city girl with small-town roots, she is grateful for a family that has allowed for autonomy — with a little room for sibling teasing, of course.

“Being on the younger end of six children gave me a lot of independence and confidence to figure things out on my own,” she said. “I’m naturally adventurous and a big risk taker, which I think has been funny for my family to understand at times. When I shared the news that I was cast in a show on HBO, my eldest sibling pleaded that I pretend to be an only child. That big family style of teasing will put hair on your chest and prepare you for the real world like nothing else.”