hairdressers

Half thinking of making a hairdressing appointment, when I saw the link at I like to old hairdressers. Every town has at least one and they're another taste of yesteryear with quality signwriting, 50s styling, or simple charm.

I think there's an old salon in this very suburb, but I wish this travelling hairdresser from 1945 was still around.


Meanwhile ...Members of the Hairdressers Council

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Comments: hairdressers

That old salon up the road?

Take my advice, Boynton. Don't go there.
Posted by Nora at September 21, 2004 05:27 PM

Yes I think old salons could be rather scary places. Memories of scary old hairdressers of childhood. However, if they had a 'Happy Hour' like one of the neighbouring establishments, I could be tempted.
Posted by boynton at September 22, 2004 12:34 AM

Damn, speak for yerself ladies.

I came over here to escape all the testosterone bitchiness of the blokey political blogs, only to find you hairsprayed harpies dissing the local barber with his trusty shears and staple-detached copies of 'The Australian Post" and "National Geographic".

Where else could I keep up with the latest developments for the Ettamongah Pub and the threat to puffin colonies on the Isle of Rhum, while also being trimmed off the top and tipped about a nice little stayer in the second at Flemington?
Posted by Nabakov at September 22, 2004 01:52 AM

Yeah OK, Nat Geo was gluebound - but it's the principle of pages drifting loose under nervous prepubscent fingers while yer waiting for yer Number 2 that's the nub 'n' stubble of my point.
Posted by Nabakov at September 22, 2004 04:39 AM

There's an ancient guy who runs a one-man barbers in the covered market in Letchworth. It's just a glazed booth with one barber's chair, a sink, a table bearing the most basic implements, some chairs for waiting patrons & a garish seascape on the one wall. And there are always three or four custoners waiting. Glimpsed in passing, it's like an Edward Hopper painting.
Posted by Dick at September 22, 2004 07:45 AM

No no nabakov - didn't intend to diss any such barbers. I'm too fond of the stubble of suburban yesteryears to diss any remnant barbers, which afford the universal time-warped glimpses for passers by, as Dick suggests.
The outer suburban lone ancient female hairdresser of yesteryear on the other hand, brings back ancient memories, not all sunny.

I know that you mean the ethnology pix of Nat Geog, but coincidentally I was going to link to this site yesterday, which features an ancient 'beehive'
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/bestvintage/photogallery_01.html

(link via Life in the present
http://michellefierro.typepad.com/veritas/2004/09/national_geogra.html)
Posted by boynton at September 23, 2004 02:47 PM

my first barber had a mirrored ceiling and every wall-inch covered with girlie pics - damn those were the days, at seven and a half
Posted by nardo at September 23, 2004 06:40 PM

description of the blogopshere ?
or at least the 'testosterone local blokey political' parts thereof ;)
Posted by boynton at September 23, 2004 11:16 PM

blokosphere
Posted by nardo at September 24, 2004 05:28 PM

My apologies ladies for the "hairpsrayed harpies" phrase. T'was meant jocularly, in context, in character, in...oh bugger it, I was drunk.

Anyhoo, finally saw the Coens' "The Man Who Wasn't There" the other night. Classical barbershop shit.. and some serious voudoun shit too - which must have involved raising James Wong from the the dead for the some of the most stunning B&W cinematography I've ever seen.

But yer I'm old enough to remember being young in an old barbershop chair. Part of the appeal was being a 12 year old hearing unrelated grownups talking about manly things and happy to explain some of them to you in a reasonably unpatronising way. "Well sonny, handicapping a horse means that you take some lead...", "Raquel Welsh? Well sonny, it's like this..."

That means a lot to a twelve year old who's Mum left him there with strict instructions for his tonsure.
Posted by Nabakov at September 25, 2004 01:19 AM

the jocular vein was spotted.
the movie sounds ok.
'Sonny' memories sound intriguing.
(I would have liked to have had handicapping explained to me as a young lass. There's still time I guess before the first Tues of Nov.)

Coincidentally today I read about the old barber shops of old Port Adelaide, gone in the gentrication.
Posted by boynton at September 25, 2004 08:42 PM