Ambassador Marjory Bibi 🇫🇷
A Bag Full of Courage — Welcome Ambassador Marjory Bibi
Sometimes the hardest part of a journey happens before you leave home.
Before the first stone touches steel. Before anyone asks you a question. Before there is a room full of Masters watching your hands.
For Marjory Bibi, from the Biarritz area in southern France, that moment came when illness put her journey to Ghent for Level 2 into question.
The doubt was real. She wanted to be there. Whether she would make it was another matter.
But something had already taken hold in Bovino.
During Level 1 at Scapicchio Academy, she had discovered a craft that stayed with her long after the course ended. The stones. The razors. The care behind a good shave. The feeling that there was an entire world inside something most people barely stopped to consider.
She wanted to understand it.
So, when the time came, she travelled alone from southern France to Ghent, carrying her luggage, her uncertainty, and a bag full of courage.
It was a long way to come for something that mattered.
And she made it count.
Marjory completed Level 2 with distinction. Then she went home and kept working.
That is where much of this story belongs: in the hours between courses, when the excitement has settled and you are left with your tools and the things you still need to improve.
She worked on her honing. Her shaving technique. Her presence and composure behind the chair.
Messages went back and forth with her mentor, Stijn De Sutter, who had taken her under his wing within Scapicchio Academy. Questions, feedback, adjustments. Something to practise, something to reconsider, something to try again.
Little by little, the work became more assured.
And eventually, it was time to put it all to the test.
The first day of her Ambassador assessment brought a particular kind of pressure: theory.
Marjory was nervous. Deeply nervous.
Anyone who has cared enough about an examination knows that feeling. You have studied. You have prepared. Still, there is that small, persistent voice asking whether it will be enough when the paper is in front of you.
Her result answered clearly.
Ninety per cent.
An exceptional score, earned through serious preparation and a growing understanding of the craft.
That evening, the questions she had missed came back to the table.
There was food. There was wine. And there was time to talk.
They went through her answers together, looking at how she had reached them and where her reasoning had taken a wrong turn. An incorrect answer can be useful when you are willing to examine it honestly. It gives a teacher somewhere to begin and a student something concrete to understand.
Around that restaurant table, the examination became a conversation.
This, too, is education.
People sharing what they know, listening carefully, and leaving the table stronger than when they sat down.
Earlier that same day, Master Luigi Scapicchio had placed three different razors in her hands.
A kamisori. A hollow-ground razor. A full wedge.
Three blades, each requiring her attention and understanding.
She was given the time to work at her own pace.
And she used it well.
Marjory honed all three freehand, without tape on the spine, achieving beautiful results. The patient work she had continued after Level 2 was there to be seen in her hands.
Then came day two.
A blade can be examined on a bench. A shave asks you to bring everything together with a person in the chair.
Preparation. Touch. Control. Judgment.
And on this occasion, the added pressure of experienced Masters watching.
For Stijn, their presence mattered. He had followed Marjory’s progress closely and knew how much she had invested in reaching this point. He also wanted the other Masters to see her work for themselves and give their own judgment on her readiness to become an Ambassador.
That approval had to be earned in the room.
Marjory delivered.
Her shave showed the care, technique and composure she had worked so hard to develop. Under pressure, she brought her learning into practice.
When Master Barber Vincenzo Scapicchio was asked whether she was ready, his response came with a wink and a wholehearted yes.
A good Ambassador.
A small gesture. A few words.
You can carry a moment like that for the rest of your life.
Then came the blue jacket, and the plaque she could proudly display at her shop.
By then, both held the weight of a very personal journey: the uncertainty before leaving home, the trip alone to Ghent, the practice, the conversations, the nerves, and the courage to let others assess work she cared deeply about.
Marjory, you earned your place here.
Thank you for trusting Stijn with your learning. For asking questions and staying open to the answers. For continuing the work when the course was over and there was still so much to discover.
There is something deeply moving about watching a student grow into someone who can now help carry this knowledge forward.
From Stijn and the entire Scapicchio Family:
Welcome, Ambassador Marjory Bibi.
Wear the blue jacket with pride.
You are part of the family.
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