I'm not your metrosexual male**, in fact far from it. I do have male friends that approach getting their hair cut from the same perspective as my female friends heading to their salon for a cut and perm. There are certainly some men-only and mixed shops to fulfill that need such as State Street Barbers in Chicago. Even in smaller towns you likely will find something with a lot of added show (try Tim's barber shop).
If on the other hand you are willing to go with something less than a "stylist" and take the opportunity to check the back corners of the inner city and suburbs you may still be able to find one of the dwindling number of traditional barbers, though it is getting a little harder as few young men or women are willing to pursue a career in a one-chair barber shop. I have managed to find a couple of favorites, depending on my location.
Pictured above is the Third One Barber Shop in Estes Park, my usual spot for a hair cut when I'm in the mountains. It is truly the classic, old time, small town barber shop where Field and Stream is neatly stacked next to the Playboys. My neck is snugly wrapped, hair efficiently cut, and then a vacuum brush run over my head before unwrapping my neck so that I don't have itchy hairs in my neck the rest of the day. The attitude is relaxed and the talk easy, and the tab is only $12 with tip.
** "The typical metrosexual is a young man with money to spend, living in or within easy reach of a metropolis – because that's where all the best shops, clubs, gyms and hairdressers are. He might be officially gay, straight or bisexual, but this is utterly immaterial because he has clearly taken himself as his own love object and pleasure as his sexual preference. Particular professions, such as modeling, waiting tables, media, pop music and, nowadays, sport, seem to attract them but, truth be told, like male vanity products and herpes, they're pretty much everywhere. For some time now, old-fashioned (re)productive, repressed, unmoisturized heterosexuality has been given the pink slip by consumer capitalism. The stoic, self-denying, modest straight male didn't shop enough (his role was to earn money for his wife to spend), and so he had to be replaced by a new kind of man, one less certain of his identity and much more interested in his image – that's to say, one who was much more interested in being looked at (because that's the only way you can be certain you actually exist). A man, in other words, who is an advertiser's walking wet dream."
- Salon Magazine
1 comment:
Good post, John. Never heard of the term metrosexual male before. But then I don't read Salon Magazine very often.
Remember the post/base barber shops--I paid $1 for several years. My favorite 'shop' is local here in Fort Collins. You're welcome to come with me sometime, and I'll treat you to an informal haircut experience. Magazines include Bowhunter, Bicycling, National Geographic, Time, Civil War Times, and a few others--not so neatly stacked. The chair isn't the most comfortable, but there is a wet/dry shop vac for vacuuming away all those stray hairs. Best of all--we just have to walk one flight of stairs to the basement, short waits, no tipping, and the tab is zero. Unfortunately there's only one style of cut available, but you can get it with a number 0, number 1, number 2, or number 3 professional clipper.
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