In Japanese, NAKAMA [仲間] means more than just teammates or colleagues — it refers to people you've chosen yourself and whom you stand behind. The studio grew out of this word, and the same word shapes the way we work.

We do haircuts, colouring and styling for men and women in Tbilisi. We do them in a way that lets the client live with the result at home — without half an hour of fighting the blow-dryer every morning, and without a mandatory return visit two weeks later to "tidy it up."

In our chair we listen with equal attention to the person who came in for a short clipper fade at 40 GEL and to the person booked for a full transformation at 220. We don't rush, we don't upsell, and we say it straight when a client's idea won't work on their hair type — even when an honest answer costs us the booking.

The stylists at Nakama are partners in the studio. We're building a place where a barber with ten years of experience and a barber who joined a year ago talk as equals, share techniques, and calmly admit when something is outside their skill set. We don't run a star-stylist hierarchy — clients feel that kind of hierarchy through the wall, and it spoils the atmosphere worse than bad lighting does.

For the neighbourhood and the city, we want to be the place where it isn't intimidating to walk in for the first time. No obligatory beauty-industry jargon, no looks that size up your outfit, no difference whether you speak Georgian, Russian or English. A good haircut is a basic thing, and access to one should be open to a person regardless of how confident they feel opening the salon door.