Corinna
Hernandez
Hernandez
Founder
Founder & Salon Director
Twenty years of fashion-week backstage work. Built the layering curriculum the studio is taught on.
Pony is a layers-focused salon and continuing-education studio for hairdressers, built around the curriculum Corinna Hernandez spent two decades refining backstage at fashion weeks in New York, Paris, and Milan.
Why "Pony"? Corinna named it for the ponytail — the single hairstyle she practiced over and over to earn a spot on the backstage fashion-week team. The pony is the foundation. Everything else is built on top of it.
Pony Education began in 2014, before there was a brick-and-mortar studio at all. Corinna founded it to offer something the industry rarely makes time for: deep, structured training for working hairdressers. She traveled to over 300 salons across the United States and Canada, teaching her layering curriculum to more than 5,000 stylists.
The traveling worked. The packing, unpacking, and commuting did not. Living out of a kit of shears and a rolling case wasn't sustainable for Corinna, for her family, or for the planet she was already trying to leave better than she found it. The studio had to come home.
In January 2019, the first brick-and-mortar Pony opened in Rockridge — a custom-built salon, an education theatre, and an atelier lounge under one roof. A second location, Pony Salon in Temescal, followed in August 2020. In September 2023, both teams merged into the single studio at 4834 Telegraph Ave., where every chair, every cut, and every class now lives in one place.
The result is a working salon that doubles as a classroom. Clients sit for a precision layered haircut, a balayage, or a blowout. Stylists come through to study the same curriculum that built the chairs they're learning in. The two sides of the business have always belonged in the same room.
"A great designer and friend, Shiraz Anzari, once said that you should have three things in your space: a mix of vintage, modernity, and wanderlust. I really loved that, and it always stuck with me."
The studio itself was designed by Leah Real Parks, who has shaped every Pony space from the beginning. The wall art — a piece called Wild Ponies — was made by tattoo artist Jason McAfee specifically for the studio. Vintage, modernity, wanderlust. All three, on every wall.
Corinna launches Pony Education to teach her layering curriculum to working hairdressers across North America — traveling to over 300 salons and 5,000 stylists over the next several years.
The first brick-and-mortar location lands in Oakland's Rockridge neighborhood — a custom-built salon paired with an education theatre and an atelier lounge. Bumble & Bumble founder Michael Gordon attends, cheering from the sidelines.
A second location joins the family — a sister space focused on the salon experience, designed once again by Leah Real Parks.
The two Oakland locations merge into a single, expanded studio at 4834 Telegraph Ave. — one block from the old Temescal address. Every stylist, every chair, every class now lives under one roof.
Pony Studios Co holds a 4.9-star average across more than 1,800 Google reviews, has been featured in Forbes, and remains committed to diverting over 95% of salon waste from landfills.
Before there was a Pony, there was a kit of shears, a redeye to JFK, and a backstage call time. Corinna Hernandez spent two decades on the backstage teams of fashion weeks in New York, Paris, and Milan, working alongside the industry's most recognized stylists and earning a reputation for layers-focused transformations.
What she learned on those runways became a curriculum. What that curriculum became is Pony — a salon and education studio built on a single conviction: that hairdressers deserve a deeper understanding of their own craft, and that clients deserve the same precision that goes into a runway show.
She has personally taught the Pony layering method to thousands of working stylists, in cities from Vancouver to Brooklyn. Today, she still cuts at the studio on Telegraph.
The Pony team is a mix of established and emerging hairdressers — all committed to ongoing education, entrepreneurialism, positivity, and the community they share a chair with every day.
Twenty years of fashion-week backstage work. Built the layering curriculum the studio is taught on.
A trusted hand at Pony with a loyal client base. Cuts and color, all hair types.
Precision cuts and dimensional color, with a focus on grow-outs that look intentional from week one.
A versatile cutter trained inside the Pony curriculum, working with every hair type and curl pattern.
Plus a deep bench of senior cutters, colorists, and apprentices working through the Pony curriculum. The full roster — including who's booking new clients this week — is available on the booking page.
We divert over 95% of salon waste from landfills, recycle foils and color tubes, and invest in reforestation to leave a net-negative carbon footprint.
We donate 10% of profits to Planned Parenthood Northern California, Covenant House California, Oakland Public Education Fund, and SF SafeHouse.
Pony Education is built into the studio. The same curriculum Corinna has taught at more than 300 salons is part of how every cutter on our team trains.
Every service is priced and built around your hair, not your gender. Same chairs, same shears, same care, whoever's sitting down.
Curly, coily, fine, wavy, straight, thick — the layering method is built on cutting hair the way it actually grows out of your head.
Apprentices and emerging stylists train alongside senior cutters every day. Hair careers, like haircuts, take time and structure.
"Following a 20-year career of multiple NYC, Paris and Milan fashion weeks, educating more than 3,000 stylists across the country, and building a reputation on layers-focused hair transformations, Corinna Hernandez has checked off a major career goal by opening Pony Studios."
The studio is built around a single design idea — that a working space should hold three things at once. Old, new, and somewhere you'd want to travel to. Every Pony location has been designed by the same team to keep that line intact.
Designed every Pony space from the original Rockridge studio through the merged Telegraph Ave. location.
Original piece created for the studio by the Bay-area tattoo artist. Hangs on the main floor.
The friend and designer who first articulated the three-things rule that shaped every space Corinna has built since.
The studio is open Tuesday through Saturday. New color clients are encouraged to start with a consultation. Booking requires a card on file with a 48-hour cancellation window.
This is a draft about page for Pony Studios Co — built by Glyph Sites.