Secret Life Of Dads hosted a braiding workshop for fathers at a London pub, and tapped into something bigger than hair.
A table full of hair mannequins, a pint in hand, and a crash course in braiding — that's the scene that played out at a Marylebone pub two weeks ago, when UK podcast Secret Life Of Dads hosted its first live event. Pints & Ponytails brought together a group of fathers who wanted to get better at something most of them had quietly struggled with: doing their daughters' hair. Trainers from Braid Maidens walked them through the basics, taking participants "from barely being able to do a ponytail to the Elsa by the end of the class."
The event, hosted above Local Saint's Marylebone pub with pints provided by the same, was deliberately low-pressure and social. That framing matters. As participant Joshua Wolrich put it afterward, "It was wonderful to meet a bunch of fellow girl dads who wanted to better their skills and share more of the unpaid emotional labor at home." On social media, the event went viral, with men in other cities looking to organize something similar in their own hometowns.
TREND BITE
Pints & Ponytails is a small event with an outsized idea: the everyday, unglamorous work of caring for children — including the 7 am scramble with a brush and a hair tie — is something fathers can and should be part of. The organizers removed any awkwardness by making the experience communal and fun. For brands and organizations thinking about how to reach millennial and Gen Z dads, this is worth paying attention to. This generation of fathers is actively looking to show up differently than their own dads did. They just need the tools, literal and otherwise, to do it.