Sunday, July 1, 2001

Barbers Are Hair To Stay!

By Kristen A. Graham INQUIRER SUBURBAN STAFF

Just after he finishes brushing the last few hairs from his customer's neck, he whirls the man around on his high maroon leather chair, produces a huge mirror, and issues a grin.

"You're going to love this haircut," Golding says, handing the glass to whomever he has just shorn. "Love it."

He means it. Every time, for the last 60 years.

Although such barbershop rituals are widely regarded as part of a cherished American institution, the number of barbers across the country is shrinking, according to figures from the U.S. Bureau of labor Statistics. Tucked into a corner of the Cherry Hill Mall, past Express and the Gap, the big-name department stores and small coffee bars that make the shopping center such a South Jersey landmark, is a shop that is both a throwback and a sign of the times.

In a market where the number of high-end hair salons is growing and the number of old-fashioned barbershops has dropped by nearly 25 percent in the last four years, the Cherry Hill Mall Barber Shop, one of the mall's original tenants, tries to be a little bit of both.

Past the shelves full of pricy jars of pomade and cans of mousse and bottles of styling spritz, two barbers - Golding and Mario DiLodovico - with more than 100 years' experience between them stand at chairs, chatting aimlessly and giving the same haircuts they've given for ages.

While the cuts are the same, the mall store is part of a new wave of barbershops that don't necessarily attract the stable repeat customer base that traditional Main Street shops do.

"This is more like a convenience shop," said Golding, who is 75 and has been cutting hair since he was 13. "We're open when the others are closed. The wives bring their husbands shopping, the husbands come in and get a haircut." They still offer the same services: simple cuts, reasonable prices, family ownership, few frills.

And the talk. There's always the talk.

"My wife said to me, 'You're worse than the kids,' " patron Don Vokes told Golding, whom he'd never met, but with whom he was discussing a reluctance to go to a doctor.

"But you got to go," Golding said, trimming Vokes' silver hair and sighing. "Little things become big things, you know?

" A few subjects later - the Shore, the weather, The Rockford Files, the kids, then the mirror presentation - Vokes shook Golding's hand, plunked down $12 for his cut, and signed up for the store's mailing list.

Convenience attracted Vokes, who lives in Moorestown and usually goes to a barbershop in Cinnaminson, to stop in on a recent weekday morning.

"I was taking the jogger's walk in the mall this morning, and I thought I'd stop in and relax for 15 minutes," he said, rubbing his freshly shaved neck. "It's a good haircut."

The number of barbers, however, is on its way down. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of barbers has decreased from 70,900 in 1997 to 54,000 this year. The number of hairdressers, hairstylists, cosmetologist, and other non-barber jobs has grown by about 5 percent, from 638,000 in 1997 to 669,000 this year.

While "overall employment of barbers and cosmetologists is projected to grow as fast as the average for all occupations through 2008 . . . employment of barbers is expected to decline," according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics publication.

But DiLodovico, the original proprietor of the store his son now owns, isn't worried.

"Barbershops will not go away," he said. "Men still want to have their hair cut. They still want to look nice for their wives."

Bob Timmons, on the other hand, is a bit more concerned. The 46-year-old, who owns four Timmons' Barber Shop stores in South Jersey and plans to open five more, points to the decline of a once-healthy local barber's union as a sign of the way the industry is heading.

"There's just a handful of us left - eight of us - and in 1968, there were 5,500 members in our Local 889," Timmons said. "I'm one of the few people around that are actually opening up barbershops, but I see a demand for that old-time, hot towel, straight-razor shop, that camaraderie, the stuff my generation grew up with."

Men are being discouraged from going into barbering, he said, because of the way state licensing now works.

In New Jersey in the mid-1970s, separate barbering and cosmetology licenses were abolished and a single cosmetology and hairstyling license established.

Timmons said that most beauty schools offer little in the way of barbering classes, so many people have to go through cosmetology school, get licensed, then serve an apprenticeship with a barber willing to teach the trade on the job.

"The guys go to cosmetology school, and they want to be a barber, and they make them go through doing nails, skin, doing updos, straightening hair," Timmons said. "The guys get frustrated, and a lot wind up quitting. That's what has left this industry so short of male operators."

Scott Corcoran, who cuts hair at Timmons' Pitman shop on Broadway, is learning barbering techniques from Timmons just as his boss learned the trade from the Caravelli family, whose shop has been a Haddonfield fixture for years.

Though he said he values the barber training he's receiving, Corcoran, 30, said that his current job limits his creativity.

He envisages starting his own salon at some point down the road, he said.

"Younger kids are in the salon mind-set," he said, shrugging. "People don't want the fuss, but barbershops are more personal, more old-time."

Offering an alternative to the nostalgic, slow-paced, usually male-only shops has become big business.

There are nearly 800 Hair Cuttery salons on the East Coast and in the Chicago area, and company officials estimated that 50 to 100 more open every year.

"We've grown pretty aggressively, and we will continue to do so," said Mary Wilson, chief operating officer of the Hair Cuttery. "I hate to think we're replacing the barbershop, but the Hair Cuttery offers value for the entire family."

Nationwide, about half of the Hair Cuttery's customers are men, and that percentage is greater in the Philadelphia area, Wilson said.

"Men are now starting to want different types of styles, different colors, different textures, and that's not something they can get done at most barbershops," she said. "Times are changing."

Guido Cavacini, longtime proprietor of Guido's Barber & Hair Styling Shop on Main Street in Riverton - heavy on the barbershop and light on the styling - readily admits he's changed only so much.

"I get a lot of four generation customers coming in," he said, pumping shaving cream from an ancient chrome dispenser. "Men of a certain age, they want the same cuts. The young guys, though, they want a lot of flattops, lot of high and tights, bowl cuts."

Cavacini, 61, has been a barber for more than 40 years, 20 at his current location, and is now assisted by his son, 33-year-old Tony.

The shop, decorated with posters of Mother Katharine Drexel, the Sopranos and Frank Sinatra, is a haven for his customers, he said. Patrons can smoke if they like, and discuss gambling and sports ad infinitum.

"It's all men and we're free to talk about whatever we want to talk about: no women," Cavacini said.

Aware of but not daunted by the decline in barbers, Cavacini said that as long as the industry figures out a way to lure operators away from salons and into bastions of traditional male haircuts, customers will come.

"They're here to stay," he said gruffly, trimming and fluffing a customer's damp hair. "No place like a barbershop."

Kristen Graham's e-mail address is kgraham@phillynews.com. © Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.