A disco haircut request turned into a time travel lesson

This older gentleman came in last week with a wrinkled photo from his youth, asking for the same shag cut he had in the 70s. I had to pull out my dad's old thinning shears from the back, which hadn't been touched in ages. Back then, we used to spend an hour just on layering with those things, but now clippers do most of the work in minutes. I fumbled through it, trying to remember how we used to shape those long sideburns without guides. Halfway through, I realized the hairspray I had was nothing like the heavy aerosol cans from back in the day. When I finished, he looked at himself and chuckled, saying his hair now had more personality than he did back then. It was a funny reminder of how tools and styles have shifted so much over the years.

3 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

3 Comments

joelharris7mo ago

Did he talk about what those haircuts meant to people back in the day? The way you described fumbling with the tools shows how much skill has been lost. It makes me think about what else we've let go because things are faster now.

1

abbyl497mo ago

Ugh, joelharris, you nailed it. It's everywhere. We traded handwritten letters for quick texts that don't mean anything. We stopped fixing things and just throw them away. Even knowing how to cook a real meal from scratch feels like a lost art now. When everything is about the fastest option, what are we actually saving?

8

elliotb577mo ago

During the Great Depression, a clean cut meant DIGNITY, something we've traded for speed and convenience.

4