A cut in business

ST. LOUIS -- Marciano Garcia fears he might be one of a dying breed: the old-time barber who cuts hair with clippers, gives shaves with a straight razor and maintains a supply of men's magazines for his customers.

"Out of this chair, I raised six kids," said Garcia, 64.

By the way, the chair is 90 years old, a porcelain-and-chrome Koken with an ornate metal footrest.

"It's got to be heavy so it won't tip over when you lean it back," said Garcia, whose customers call him by his first name. "Some guys weigh up to 380 pounds."

Traditional barbershops, those that by state law can display the blue-and-red striped pole and give shaves, are being replaced by unisex styling salons and low-cost, quick-clip shops.

'Look like a girl' backfired

Garcia blames barbers' attitudes years ago, as well as changing times and tastes, for the apparent decline of his profession.

"When long hair was in, we said: 'You look like a girl.' ... It backfired," he said. "When the unkempt look was in, they wouldn't come into a barber shop. When they did, they had to find someone who could cut longer hair. That separated the barbers from the stylists."

For example, Missouri in 1993 had 4,210 active licensed barbers, said Kristi Wilson, an administrator with the state's division of professional registration. Today, the state has 3,293, a drop of 22 percent.

Meanwhile, the number of licensed cosmetologists has increased, though the way the state classifies them makes it difficult to draw a direct comparison, Wilson said.

At Garcia's two-chair shop on the second floor of the Pierre Laclede Building in Clayton, a customer who'd gotten a trim was sitting in a chair, reading a magazine.

"I'm one of the last guys to have Playboy," Garcia said. "I get priests and rabbis in here, and they don't say anything."

Garcia thinks of himself first, last and always as a barber, not a stylist. A stylist, he noted, colors hair, something he has no interest in doing. Only licensed barbers can shave customers, and they must prove their skill by shaving a face to pass the exam and get a license. Garcia laments that most barbers don't give shaves anymore.

Though he did not finish eighth grade, Garcia has supported his family for 40 years by cutting hair. He has made an effort to keep up with the latest trends and prides himself on attending seminars on techniques and styles.

Despite their declining numbers, barbers still can make good money, said Robert Elliott, director of the Missouri School of Barbering and Hair Styling.

"They can make a good living, $75,000 to $80,000 a year," Elliott said, "but they have to work 10 to 12 hours a day."

'We are like priests'

Garcia takes 15 to 20 customers a day, most by appointment and most from outside his building. He will have been in the same shop for 33 years in February.

Garcia is also a confidant to many customers. When asked about that role, he pointed to some small figures he keeps on hand: the hear-, see- and speak-no-evil monkeys.

"We are like priests. No tell."

A native of San Antonio, he arrived in St. Louis as a teenager. But instead of taking the train on to Chicago, as he'd planned, he started shining shoes in a barber shop at Union Station. Soon, he enrolled in barber college. His father and grandfather were barbers, but he had thought for a while that he wanted to do something else.

Though traditional barber shops are waning overall, that might not be the case for shops that cater to black customers.

"African-Americans don't go to malls too often for haircuts," said Leonard Hall, owner of Leonard's Barber College, which trains barbers to cut blacks' hair. "They don't like to go to salons."

His school, one of three in the St. Louis area and seven in the state, trains about 15 barbers a year, down 25 percent from a few years ago. Hall attributes the decline to a cutback in government programs to help people with learning a profession.

Different races have different hair textures, from blacks to whites, Asians to Latinos, he said. So, customers are more likely to be loyal to barbershops that know how to cut their particular kind of hair.

But younger men who choose different styles -- cornrows and twisting, for example -- usually can't find traditional barbers who will do that. They must go to salons or shops specializing in braids and other styles.

Lee Moss, 59, has a shop in Webster Groves, drawing customers from as far as Belleville and Crystal City.

Moss attracted national attention a few years ago when he began giving free haircuts to black male students who made good grades. He wanted to encourage scholarship, but he dropped the practice after it gained so much notice.

Moss said he welcomes people of all races into his chair. And he's not worried about the decline of traditional barber shops. He owns a styling salon on the other side of a partition.

With the influx of people of many races and ethnic backgrounds into the United States, Moss said the distinctions that had separated black and white barbershops are fading.

"Those people of color, they can come to a shop like this and get a haircut," he said. "I take anyone. I don't make a big deal out of it."