Bambang Soteto
Founder, Hairkunst & Dashing Diva
Two decades in professional hair, with training across Germany, the UK and Austria. The standard Dashing Diva is built on is his.
Credentials
- 2001 – 2005European TrainingTrained intensively across Mannheim, London and Vienna, five years building a foundation that most hairdressers never get.
- 2003 – 2006Trainer, Headquarters AcademyWorked as a trainer at one of Vienna’s most respected hair academies before returning to Malaysia.
- 2007 – presentFounder, HairkunstBuilt Hairkunst from one salon at The Curve into a brand with branches in KLCC, Mont Kiara and Shah Alam.
- 2010 – 2012Schwarzkopf Brand AmbassadorSelected as the only Bumiputera hairdresser to represent Schwarzkopf across Asia: Malaysia, Shanghai, Vietnam, Jakarta, Hong Kong and Macau.
- 2013 – presentFounder, BUHAEstablished the Bumiputera Hairdressing Association to ensure Malay hairdressers have a fair stake in the industry.
- 2018 – 2020L’Oréal AmbassadorAppointed as L’Oréal Malaysia ambassador, one of the most recognised roles in the local hair industry.
A career built on craft
Most hairstylists learn what works locally, for local clients, in local salons. Bambang went the other way. Between 2001 and 2005 he trained across Mannheim, London and Vienna, then stayed on to teach at one of Vienna’s academies before coming home. Not to collect experience on a CV. To understand the underlying science that most hairdressers here had no access to: what the hair shaft actually responds to, why a colour holds for months instead of weeks, what a cut needs to do before it needs to look good.
That knowledge is what came back with him. Hairkunst opened in 2007.
In 2013 he founded BUHA, the Bumiputera Hairdressing Association, because Malay hairdressers were being cut out of an industry they helped build. That tells you something about how he operates.
Dashing Diva is what he built next. A salon designed around what Muslimah women need: a fully private space, an all-women team, and the same standard of work he spent two decades refining. Every stylist here trains to his curriculum.
As seen in
“Muslim women were stuck with a choice that shouldn’t exist: go somewhere good, and feel out of place, or go somewhere that felt right, and the quality wasn’t there. That’s not acceptable to me. So I built a third option.”
Bambang Soteto, on why he created Dashing Diva
Hairkunst
Before Dashing Diva, there was Hairkunst, the salon Bambang built from the ground up in 2007 at The Curve, Mutiara Damansara. It’s the standard every Dashing Diva stylist is still trained to.
Visit Hairkunst →