Luxury Retailer Is Suspicious of the Intentions of Another

Luxury Retailer Is Suspicious of the Intentions of Another

Proving Fran Lebowitz’s oft-cited dictum that “you’re only as good as your last haircut,” authentic-looking barbershops have popped up all over lower Manhattan. Done up with, say, vintage lighting fixtures, antique barber chairs and, of course, a big glass jar of blue Barbicide on the counter, they are offering good, solid haircuts and shaves for less than half the price of a fancy salon cut. And in a kind of tonsorial version of chicken-or-the-egg, their arrival is perfectly timed, coinciding with the twin desires among urbane young men to tame their unruly locks and look neater and sharper from the neck up, and do it in all-American, gentlemanly, modestly priced fashion, far from the salon smells of peroxide and perfume.

That spot in Carroll Gardens aside, Lower Manhattan seems to be the epicenter of it all, where these new-old-fashioned places range from the punk-rock-plain (like Frank’s Chop Shop on the Lower East Side) to the fancy-pants (the New York Shaving Company in NoLIta) to the gimmicky (the Blind Barber in the East Village is also a bar). Prices at those places run from $30 to $40 for a haircut and $25 to $40 for a straight-razor hot shave (which has itself become a popular choice).