I’m not calling my parents hippies, but when I was a kid, they weren’t super interested in cutting my hair. I didn’t notice at the time because I paid no attention to my hair. In contrast, as a child I definitely (and defiantly) had something we will call ‘personal style.’ I cherished a pair of transparent Jelly sandals and had to be talked out of wearing skin-tight bike shorts to school. When I told them I was gay at age 15, my parents’ lack of surprise shouldn’t have been a surprise to me.
I know from photographs that my hair was allowed to grow as shaggy as the Jungle Book’s Mowgli, who, as a shirtless wild child at our cottage, I strongly resembled. Back home in civilization (the Annex), I would be taken to ‘Gus the Other Barber,’ the legendary barber shop slash Greek soccer museum. I remember the smells of shaving cream and the sensation of water spritzed on my neck.
I moved away from the simple pleasures of the barber shop as I grew up, visiting a series of hair dressers who gave me the ‘Hugh Grant’ in ’99, the ‘faux hawk’ in ’02, and the ‘hipster barista with bangs’ in 2007. I’ve always had thick, dark hair but I’ve been scared away from growing it out after an ill-conceived shoulder length style during university that made me look like Jason Schwartzman in I Heart Huckabees. After that, my naturally lusciousness was wasted with cowardly buzz cuts.
This summer, at a roof top party in the Junction, I was admiring the hair of a musician originally from Newfoundland.
“I went to this place called ‘Hollow Ground,’” he yelled over the music. “You should go!”
“Are you sure it’s Hollow Ground and not Hallowed Ground?” I called back. “That would make more sense!”
I’m a language pedant, even at rooftop parties in the Junction.
The barber shop, which is called Hollow Ground, is on Bloor street by Dufferin. The traditional red, white and blue striped pole served its purpose, as it helped me find the place from three storefronts away. Once inside, I was confronted by a scene out of the ‘Andy Griffith’ show: wooden benches; old fashioned, metal and leather barber chairs; black and white tiles; antique barber shop signs hung on the exposed brick walls. The only concessions to the present were the mounted flat screen TV, the radio tuned to hip hop and the Lucky Cat figurine placed by the till, as well as the tattoos on the barbers themselves.
Hollow Ground doesn’t take appointments, and even though I arrived right at open, I was soon rubbing shoulders with a group of men, and a woman, waiting for their turns. Co-owner Beejay Diona admitted that the shop has been busy since it opened last year.
New-style, old-school barber shops, like Crow’s Nest and Blood and Bandages, are mushrooming across Toronto, serving a clientele who want the look and feel of their grandpa’s barber shop without actually going to their grandpa’s barber shop. As the quiffs and pompadours of the ‘Mad Men’ era have returned, so has the need for barbers who know how to create those severe parts and hi-top fades. While some have cited the all-male environment of the traditional barber shop as one reason for its revived popularity, Diona maintains that Hollow Ground attracts a diversity of regulars.
“We get everyone,” he says. “People from the neighbourhood. Younger people, but we also get some seniors in here. And kids. And all types of hairstyles. Not just a certain style. We do everything.”
I ask about the female clientele.
“Some girls just want a short haircut,” he explains.
“Do you think that’s why they come here, because they can’t get that simple, short haircut at a ladies’ salon?”
“They could probably, but they want to pay less,” Diona laughs. “Salons are expensive and barber shops tend to be cheaper.”
Just as Hollow Ground’s décor reflects the mixture of classic and current, so does its ethos reflect the nostalgia of an aged leather chair with the modernity of an inclusive environment. Diona, who has friends who continue to go to the old school barber shops they went to as children, doesn’t see the break between places like Gus the Other Barber and his own. It’s just the natural effect of a generation change.
“There’s always been barber shops. There’s just a lot more younger guys running them now.”
As for myself, I didn’t enter the barber’s chair with a lot of neurotic directions. My aspiration was a simple one: I wanted to look cool. Diona shaved the sides of my head, creating a gradually receding fade. He left the top of my hair long and styled it with wax. When I looked in the mirror, I was taken aback. I didn’t look like myself. Mowgli was replaced by Morrissey.
But that’s what a haircut should do: wake you up to new possibilities. Once I got used to the harshness of the fade, I realized I looked good. This was the best haircut I had ever received. It took a retro haircut from an old fashioned barber shop to see myself in a brand new way.
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Max Mosher writes about style for Toronto Standard. You can follow him on Twitter at @max_mosher_.
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