New old place for shave and haircut
[attach]4801[/attach]Something old and something new has hit the neighbourhood in the form of a barbershop.
Hollow Ground, which has been taking walk-ins for services like hot towel shaves and haircuts at 1053 Bloor St. West since the end of May, pays homage to shops of the past with retro-inspired décor and vintage barber chairs.
“It’s just traditional barbershop, antique looking,” says owner Beejay Diona, who collected the pieces. “Like if you saw a barbershop from the ’60s or something, that kind of look.”
Hollow Ground is staffed by Diona’s cousin Pernell Batara and his friend Dru Barrow. They offer a wide range of hairstyles from classic cuts to tight fades, a look that was first made popular by military men.
But the shop isn’t exclusive to guys — they also do cuts for women and have customers who range from kids to seniors.
“We just want to be the neighbourhood barbershop and take care of everyone’s needs and have fun while we do it,” Barrow says as he carefully places a towel on a client’s face. “The shop’s philosophy is to offer the cleanest and best-looking haircut suitable for each individual’s features and personality.”
The trio learned their trade through apprenticeships and by working in other barbershops. Batara says he was encouraged not to go to school and to learn through hands-on experience instead.
“I worked at several places and took a lot of different things from different people and kind of made my own style and that’s how I learned,” he says.
Although Barrow did attend Marvel, a salon school in Yorkville, he says he wasn’t taught how to shave customers in the classroom.
“I’m fully trained in colour and all that jazz, but since day one my priorities were just to be a barber,” he says. “So basically I learned and then I graduated and then I kind of relearned a lot because surprisingly they’re quite different worlds.
“So I kind of went back to learn more about the art of barbering on top of that.”
All three barbers use different tools to achieve what they believe is the cleanest work.
“The name Hollow Ground comes from like the edge of a straight razor, basically it means razor sharp,” says Diona. “And a straight razor is like a barbershop tool.”