Men's Room Barbers ( NZhairdressers.co.nz )

Home

Waikato's traditional barbers - close shave in the seventies.

But Lester Thorley finds a new generation of barbers have picked up the scissors. IT'S A monument to 1969 interior design. Dark brick knee-high wall to surround pot plants, pine-look veneer on the walls, yellow lino, black vinyl bench seat. But Maxwells Barbers Hairshop, in a small block of shops in Clyde St, Hamilton, is also a testament to the enduring appeal of the gentleman's barber.

Julian Stairmand stands outside, rolls himself a cigarette and yarns about the All Black v England rugby test with a chap from across the road.

It is an age-old ritual, chewing the fat about this, that and the other with the neighbourhood barber. Since November this has been Julian, who took over when his father Maxwell moved to Australia's Sunshine Coast to start afresh.

Julian, 31, whose first name is also Maxwell (he uses his middle name rather than his first name), proudly has his name plate at the bottom of the mirror closest to the vintage red barber chair just inside the door. The barbers shop is exactly as it was when his father began doing 50c haircuts in 1969. On a back shelf are vintage razors and the leather strops used to sharpen them.

For many men a visit to the barber is one of happy routine: a quick read of a magazine while waiting amid the sweet scent of Bay Rum, the hum of the razor, the fading hairstyle posters, the box of $2 coloured scalp brushes, the metallic swish of scissor blades, and the last "a little something on it?".

Few remain of the well-known cutters of a generation who kept the barbers shops in the city going during the 1970s lean times. Famed barbers such as Hec Firkin have died.

A candy-coloured pole stands outside a halal butchery in Grey St as a memorial to a closed barber shop. But at shopping blocks dotted around the city a new generation is emerging.

A good barbers are treasured, and many follow a trusted one if he or she moves. Many regulars resent paying salon prices, or have a lingering suspicion, whether unfair or not, that hairdressers don't know how to use clippers correctly.

These men are drawn to the blue, red and white stripes which traditionally signal a barber shop.

The colours apparently stem from the Middle Ages when health regulations clearly weren't too stringent, and barbers didn't limit themselves to trimming hair -- they extracted teeth, and performed surgery and blood letting.

Stoic customers gripped on a pole so their (blue) veins stood out. Bloody bandages were then hung on the pole and, blown by the wind, painted blood in a red pattern.

TODAY Peter Bell has driven from Cambridge to get a trim. He has occasionally strayed to hairdressing salons, and laughs about the obvious benefits of having his hair cut by an attractive woman rathre than barbers.

"But I kind of like the old fashioned barber shop, the atmosphere of it. I've had some crook haircuts from blokes in my time, mind you," Bell says in his Australian accent, before warning Stairmand "don't cut too much off, I haven't got any to spare".

The barber shop was something Bell was introduced to as a boy. He remembers hating to have to sit still for his short back and sides. "I think they were sheep shearers, half of those blokes."

Stairmand began cutting Bell's hair at a shop in Ward St, and he stayed loyal. Stairmand went into the trade straight out of school.

"I didn't know what else I was going to do and it just happened." He served a four-year apprenticeship under his father, who contracted his skills to shops in Ward St and Victoria St, while having staff run Maxwells.

Stairmand Jr learned to neatly lay out his tools, and developed a habit of putting Bay Rum in his water spray. He struggled with the pressure to get it right: "It was pretty nerve-racking. You don't want to make a stuff-up."

All Black legend Colin Meads was an early customer of Julian's in Ward St barbers.

"His ears were all mangled and I said `you've played a couple of games have you?'. He just said `a few son'," before the barbers next to Stairmand pointed out it was Meads.

Julian eventually went out on his own, with a small shop in Barton St. "It was lucky I'd been in town for so long and people knew who I was, or it would have been really hard."

A typical day means between 20 and 35 cuts, at prices ranging from $5 for a skinhead trim, to $12. Stairmand uses a cutthroat razor on a bald scalp, but though they have the same handle and blade design as the old-timer razors, the cutting edge is now disposable due to health concerns.

Some men with close crops come in once a week. "I wish we could get everyone to do that and I could have a six-chair shop." Stairmand can't see himself putting down the scissors in favour of another job. "You meet a lot of people. It's pretty cruisy, not exactly hard work."

And as he puts $5 in the till from a open-clipper cut, almost down to the skin, he says "five bucks for two minutes' work, that's not bad".

IF THE Babylonian proverb was right about fishing days not being counted in your life's total then they might like to add one about days spent with clippers, comb and scissors in hand.

Peter Standford is 66, but, with a full head of greying hair trimmed to longish old-school flat-top, looks 10 years younger. After more than 50 years in the trade, Stanford is a doyen of Hamilton barbers.

Relaxing in his Chartwell home he says "I'm pleased I've been a barber, it's been good to me". "I've always said that you make a living with your hands, but make money with this," Stanford says, pointing to his brain.

He is clearly proud that his children went to university and are in successful careers. Mainly to keep long-term customers happy, Stanford wanders the 70m across the quiet Hooker Ave cul-de-sac to cut two days a week at Kylie's Ladies and Mens Hairdresser.

"That's why I'm still going. I have a following after all these years." Catching up with customers, some who have become like old friends, is an enjoyable part of Stanford's semi-retirement "hobby".

Some customers treat their barber as confessional: "It's unbelievable what you hear. They certainly confide in you." Others seek advice from trusted Stanford, who might sit down with them over a coffee and help them talk through looming retirement: "I'm a good listener, it's part of the job."

Stanford began his career helping at his father's shop in London in the early 1950s. His after-school job was to hot towel and lather up men ready for daily cutthroat shaves.

It was also the days of singeing -- circling a customer's head with a flaming wick to trim fine hair around ears and seal off freshly cut hair.

A three-year barbers apprenticeship followed, before the Stanfords migrated to New Zealand, where Peter's father opened a barber shop and tobacconist in Ngaruawahia.

Soon Peter took his skills on the road, spending two years in various shops around the country. On his return to Hamilton in the early 1960s the father and son team leased a barbers shop in the Kings Chambers near the corner of Victoria St and Claudelands Rd.

When his father moved to Napier, Peter took over the lease of the Hollywood milk bar, which stood where McDonald's is today. The booming business, Pete's Hairdressing, had five chairs. In those days trains rattled across Victoria St, and men came in for their hair products and bi-weekly trim. It was the heyday of the barber.

Stanford's first apprentice, of about 12, was Maxwell Stairmand. Now Max's son Julian cuts Stanford's hair, and he returns the favour.

That's the interlinked way of the barbers world. They keep tabs on each other. Julian Stairmand sums it up: "A barber's got to get his hair cut somewhere."

Stanford's store sold lottery tickets, wallets, tobacco and pipes. But as with any industry hair cutting was changing with new technology. Slowly but surely the days of the cutthroat razor died out. Electric and disposable razors arrived, the price of overheads made barber shaves uneconomical.

When the 1970s arrived, and a fashion for long hair swept a world rebelling against the order of the 1960s, men began to want a hair cut as few as three times a year.

Barbers saw the writing on the mirror, and as income fell stopped taking on apprentices. Stanford says: "A lot got out of it."

Fashion is fickle and short hair was to make a comeback, but a lost generation of apprentices had left a void. Many men found their trusted barber shop was now a dairy, burger bar or florist. Women's salons happily took up the slack.

During this period Stanford took a 15-year break to pursue other business opportunities. He got back behind the barber chair when Hec Firkin asked him to help out at his Hamilton barbers shop, and after two years there took over running Maxwells for his former apprentice.

He was back in the barbers rhythm and hasn't put down his tools yet, despite the call of his other hobby, golf. Stanford predicts that the familiar candy colours will always be around. Hair never stops growing, and as Julian Stairmand tells a young customer getting a short back and sides: "Your granddad probably had the same cut."

NZhairdressers

Men's Room Barbers

Waikato's traditional barbers - close shave in the seventies.

Main Menu

Newsletter

Short Hairstyles

Curly Hairstyles

Long Hairstyles

Medium Hairstyles

Popular

Name
Email