An old-fashioned barber shop with a new age twist
The stairs leading down to Taylored Hair Barber Shop don’t exactly look inviting, but upon walking through the door, customers are greeted by a welcoming and engaging environment.
Posters and framed baseball cards cover the walls. Professional wrestling action figures line the counters and a lone barber chair sits awaiting regular clients and curious new customers.
Krys Taylor has a very old-fashioned style to his Taylored Hair Barber Shop that is evident not just by his customer’s haircuts, but also by the rest of their experience at his shop.
Alex Brizee | Blot
Krys Taylor trims the beard of University of Idaho senior Cody Blamires.
Whether it’s getting their haircut just right or making sure the music playing in the back fits the taste of the current client, Taylor said his goal is to tailor each appointment to his customers’ needs.
In addition to a wide range of music, a variety of magazines are piled on a circular coffee table, which shows how Taylor provides his customers with diverse material to fit their needs.
“Being able to have a shop like this where I can have the old metal frames and marvel comic books, DC stuff and old Michael Jordan posters from the ’90s … People look at that stuff and they know that I put my heart and soul into the environment,” Taylor said.
Taylor said his love of the old-fashioned-styled barber shop is deeply rooted in his childhood memories of the barber shop in Moscow that his family frequented when he was younger. Taylor said the shop was the kind of place where everyone knew the owner by his first name, Clarence.
“I would always go into his shop and he would have these old classic baseball seat chairs or theater chairs,” Taylor said. “He would sit there with his strop and he would strop that razor back and forth with this huge smile on his face.”
Taylor said out of everyone he has ever met, Clarence is the person he remembers the most vividly, and the memory of Clarence has been clear in his mind for the last 25 years.
Taylor now serves clients who once went to Clarence’s shop, and he said he hopes his business can provide locals with an experience as positive as the one he used to have at Clarence’s.
“I want people to walk in here and have that same feeling that I had when I walked in Clarence’s,” Taylor said. “Where you can walk in and kids come in here and they’re like ‘Batman toys! Basketball hoop!’ so you know it’s catering to every gender, every demographic, every age group.”
Taylor is not only old-fashioned at his shop, but also in his personal life. His mother Jeanne Stevenson, vice provost of Academic Affairs at the University of Idaho said Taylor has always been very respectful of people. Stevenson said she is very proud of her son and his success with owning his own small business.
Taylor’s artistic abilities, people skills and independent nature are characteristics that may have gotten passed down to him from others in the family, and they are traits that make him a distinguished barber, Stevenson said.
Most salons or barber shops nowadays that are more new-age could be described as trendy and perfect, but also sterile and white-washed, Taylor said, not at all the comforting feeling that he wants to give off at Taylored Hair.
Taylor brings that comforting feeling into his practice. He uses an older approach to cutting hair by using scissors or clippers over a comb, as opposed to electric razors.
“You can use all your talents and all your ideas as an art project and say I know exactly what you’re talking about,” Taylor said. “Just being able to say you would use this part of a new haircut, this part of an old haircut, this part of a weird haircut and put it all together and make it work.”
Taylor said he makes sure that every customer leaves with an amazing haircut and a smile on their face. Another part of Taylor’s style that is representative of his character is that he performs every haircut by individual appointment in a one-on-one setting.
He has no assistant or anyone else in the shop who cuts people’s hair. It is just him. Taylor said this allows him to get to know his customers on a personal level so they are not just clients, but friends. He knows regular customers by their first names and remembers aspects of their lives and their haircuts.
Cody Blamires, a senior at UI and client of Taylored Hair, came in without much of an idea of what he wanted for his hair. All he knew was that he wanted a major trim and Taylor was able to interpret the small things to give him the exact haircut Blamires wanted without too much explanation.
Blamires said he picks Taylored Hair Barber Shop out of all the other shops in town because of the personal service, great music taste and great haircuts.
Cooper Salmon, a regular client of Taylored Hair, said he enjoys the shop because Taylor is willing to work with him, as he tends to be picky about what he wants. He also enjoys the fact that he knows who is going to cut his hair when he walks in. There is no surprise, because it is a one-on-one experience.