A good barbershop is hard to find. When a man needs a haircut he needs just that, a haircut, nothing complicated. An authentic barbershop will display a symbolic candy-striped pole outside, and will be starkly utilitarian inside. Until the last century, barbers also acted as rough-and-ready surgeons, at prices far below the current AMA rates. This history should be reflected in the plainness of the decor: it should look like an operating theater. Carpets and flowers, pastel colors and hair dryers, are a sure sign that the place is on the downhill slide to becoming a unisex establishment, or even a beauty salon.
When unisex haircutting first came along, it seemed like a blow for sexual equality. Through the ages, women had been handicapped in the race of life not just by male chauvinism, but by the demands of hair care. Men of my generation can remember when their dates washed their hair so often and for so lon, that drowning seemed a distinct possibility. These same unfortunate women would regularly waste whole mornings in the beauty salon, come out looking like a cross between Madonna and Medusa, and pay a small fortune for the privilege. By contrast, a man's haircut was a quick, low-cost affair, over in ten minutes.
The unisex salon seemed the ideal solution. Women would get fast, cheap haircuts, and be back out there competing on the corporate battlefield on an equal basis with men. What's more, they could have the privilege of discussing sports, money, politics and sex with a whole room full of self-appointed experts.
But it didn't work out like that. There was a certain uneasiness about women and men sharing this private ritual, side by side. It took away the magic. Women must have hair secrets. There's nothing more disillusioning than seeing how they get their hair that way. It's like taking one of the underground tours in Disney World, where they reveal how the above-ground illusions are created.
A real old-fashioned barber makes no concessions to style. He will always ask: "How do you want it cut, sir?" But this is a mere formality. Everyone gets the identical short back and sides, which is what we came for in the first place.
Many men favor the baseball cap, which has largely replaced hair, much as wigs replaced hair in the eighteenth century. The baseball cap hides our most important male secret, which is how much hair we actually have. There is something about this secret that touches our deepest obsessions. It is the last vestige of our animal selves, the last scrap of protective fur covering for our tribe of naked apes. The symbolism is powerful. Samson proverbially lost his muscle tone when he was shorn of his locks. The cutting of hair has been a form of domination at least since Caesar did it to the Gauls in 52 BC. Short hair often indicates submission to a discipline, as in the bullet-headed military cut, or the penitential monastic style. At the other extreme, elaborate and high-maintenance hair styles for men indicate either a narcissistic desire to be looked at, or the absence of a mirror in the bathroom. In these contentious times, a short back and sides is the only fashion statement that says nothing at all.
Copyright: David Bouchier
