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Is It Live Or De La Pena?

Only Randy Clark knows for sure
By ALAN PEPPARD |

“THE SAD THING about men’s hair-pieces is that you only see the bad work,” says Randy Clark, the twenty-seven-year-old president of De La Pena Inc., a Dallas firm specializing in the sale, styling, maintenance, and grooming of real-hair hairpieces (don’t call them toupees) for men. Clark believes that his company turns out the best hairpieces in the country. To showcase this belief, Clark recently shaved his full head of hair and now wears one of his own custom hairpieces.

Clark boasts an international clientele among his 1,000 or so customers. Residents of Florida, California, Washington DC, Venezuela, Athens, and London all come to Dallas to buy their hairpieces and have them serviced by Clark, who does all the hairstyl-ing for the hairpieces he sells. “My average customer comes in once every two or three weeks,” he says, “I give them a wash, cut, and styling at $24.50 per visit.” So far, he says, his business has grown from word-of-mouth testimonials.

Most of those testimonials come from successful businessmen, successful enough, anyway, to afford the price tag. “When a customer comes in,” says Clark, “there’s no bargaining over the price. My pieces are $925 plus tax.” For those who are totally bald, Clark offers a “full cap” for $1,695. , Cheaper hairpieces, says Clark, can be found, but they won’t be of De La Pena’s quality. A bargain-basement, mesh-based synthetic hairpiece can be found for around $450, but Clark warns that it won’t be very comfortable or believable.



Clark says that his specialized service, in addition to the quality of the hairpieces, justifies the weighty tariff. “The most important aspect of my business,” he says, “is privacy.’’ To assure that, the De La Pena offices are located in a nondescript North Dallas office tower, down a nondescript hail, behind a nondescript door that’s modestly marked, “De La Pena Inc.” No before and after pictures hang in the window. “When a customer conies in for an appointment, I want to be sure that customer is not a spectacle, that he is given privacy and dignity,” says Clark. “My rooms are totally private. And when I’m working on a customer, it’s only me and the customer in the room.”

Clark’s operation is a franchise of an international company based in Salt Lake City called International Hair Consultants. For a first-time customer. Clark makes an exact plaster mold of his head in order to obtain a perfect fit. After matching the person’s hair color exactly, he orders a raw, unstyled piece from IHC.

The hairpieces have a base made of 100 percent silicone to which actual human hair, imported from Europe, is attached. “’My hairpieces are a blend of seven or eight different hair colors.” testifies Clark. “This blend gives the hairpiece the highlights that natural hair has. Many times if you can detect a hairpiece on someone, it’s because that piece is all one color, it’s not a blend.”

Clark also points out that “a normal hair growth pattern is circular around a crown and grows at a twenty to thirty degree angle from the scalp. This angle gives the hair its buoyancy. Each hair in these pieces is needled individually into the base of the hairpiece at the same angle, making the hairpiece undetectable.”’

At De La Pena, Clark refuses to use clips, or weave the piece to the customer’s existing hair. “Weaves and clips are loose forms of attachment that make it possible for the piece to move on the head. When you turn your head quickly, you want the hairpiece to turn with it.” De La Pena uses two-sided surgical tape that has a waterproof liquid adhesive. Clark says he has customers who regularly swim and water-ski in their hairpieces.

Although some people believe synthetic hairpieces are more durable. Clark disagrees. “Nothing is better than real human hair. Synthetic hair has many drawbacks. You can’t blow-dry synthetic hair because it melts. You have to wash it in cold water and let it air dry.”

Clark guarantees his natural hairpieces for fifteen months, but says that “if you take care of your hairpiece, its longevity will be about two or three years.”

So next time you meet a hairpiece, you might want to ask, “Is it live, or is it De La Pena?”

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