Hair Apparent

Is Michael Portman crazy? Two years ago, he had a solid, well-paying job and a comfortable pad in Los Angeles that he shared with his lovely new wife, Erin. Just 29, he was living the good life. And bored silly. He was sick of writing speeches for executives at the Walt Disney Company, sick of working for an enormous conglomerate, and really sick of Los Angeles. So he quit. He and the wife, a pair of music-lovers, moved to the alternative-rock capital of America: Austin, Texas. Eager to indulge his entrepreneurial spirit and inspired by his new city's anti-chain store ethos, Michael immediately began ginning up business ideas. One day, just three months after the Portmans arrived in Austin, Michael turned to Erin and said something that perhaps no other 29-year-old living in a big city has said aloud in decades: "Let's open a barbershop."

For decades, barbershops were a safe, dependable and consistently profitable business. "You didn't have to worry about the plant closing, you didn't have to worry about a bad crop," says Charles Kirkpatrick, executive officer of the National Association of Barber Boards of America (NABBA) and also a practicing barber in Little Rock, Ark., since 1958. "The barber was, and still is, the most independent business in town." It was also a part of the American cultural fabric, serving as the unofficial Elks club, where men could gather while they waited for a shave and a cut and discuss the all-important issues of the day, such as who should be playing third base for the Cubs and whether a Mustang or a Corvette was the sweeter ride. In 1960, there 350,000 licensed barbers in the U.S., according the NABBA. Then the Beatles came along and ruined everything.

When John, Paul, George and Ringo stormed America in the 1960s, they didn't just change the way we experience popular culture. They changed the way we do our hair. All of a sudden, young men no longer wanted the traditional buzz cut or the neat-and-tidy trim around the ears. They wanted long hair, bushy hair, floppy hair. Rock n' roll hair. "An old barber friend of mine once told me a story about seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan way back when," says Gordon Logan, the founder and CEO of Sports Clips, a 13-year-old nationwide chain of barbershops catering to sports fans. "The moment he saw them, he said to himself, 'Oh no, there goes the industry'." As the counter culture rose, men's hair got wilder and traditional barbers-most of whom were conservative, old-fashioned types-"just didn't adapt very well," says Logan. Pretty soon, lots of men were going to the same salons as their wives and girlfriends, paying twice as much for a stylist to cut their hair the way David Bowie wore it. By 1990, the number of barbers nationwide had plummeted to 185,000. The average age of a barber was 59. And there weren't any reinforcements on the way.

So Portman is crazy, right? How else do you explain trying to resurrect a fossil like the American barbershop in one of the country's edgiest towns? Here's why: Against all odds, the trend is starting to reverse itself. The explanations vary about why-salon cuts are getting too expensive, men are itching to be around more men, the backlash against that risible notion of "metrosexuality" is arriving right on schedule-but the statistics are clear. The number of barbers is back up to a healthy 220,000, and it's growing. Perhaps the biggest reason for the rebound, though, is that the classic barbershop is finally evolving to meet the times.

Next week, Portman and his business partner Jayson Rapaport will open Birds Barbershop, the first "rock n' roll" haircutter within Austin's city limits. Local bands will periodically perform, loud music will constantly blare, Wi-fi will course through the building, and the design of the shop-masterminded by local interior design guru Joel Mozersky, who did the "Real World: Austin" house on MTV-will resemble the town's dozens of nightclubs. One inside wall will be covered by a 40-foot-tall mural painted by a pair of local artists. They'll even have a disco ball dangling from the ceiling. "I'm a music geek who can't play a single instrument, and I'm insanely jealous of anyone who can. This shop is my band," says Portman. But why hair? "Because rock n' roll and hair seem to be like first cousins. The Mohawk. Blondie."

Rock n' roll barbershops are a growing phenomenon. The notion has worked like gangbusters in other cities that lack anything close to the music tradition-and devotion to independent local businesses-that resides in Austin. The barbershop is being remade in other ways, too. In less urban regions, entrepreneurs have been enticing men back into the barber's chair by appealing to their love of sports, opening shops stacked with flat screen TVs. Logan opened his first Sports Clips shop in 1993. "Back then, no one was paying attention to men," he says.