TRUEFITT & Hill may hold the record as the Oldest Barbershop in the World, but it appears that a Cypriot living in New York may hold a grand title of his own after being in the business for 85 years.
According to an article in the New York Times yesterday, Aristides Demetriou from Karavas has been a barber since the age of 10. He is now 95 and due to retire today.
In an interview with a Times reporter, sweeping a towel off yet another customer he says: “Now you can say you’ve had your hair cut by the oldest barber in the world.”
“I feel great,” Mr Demetriou said while working in the Aris Beauty Salon, on Amsterdam Avenue and 121st Street, “but my poor wife is getting lonely waiting for me to retire.” So Demetriou has set today as the day of his retirement so that he can spend time with his wife, Maria, 83, and their family.
Demetriou was born in 1910. By the age of 10 he was standing on crates to cut hair and give straight-razor shaves. At 15 he got his own shop from his father, but gave it up at 20 for America. “Armed with his scissors and a grammar school education, he came through Ellis Island on February 18, 1930; joined New York’s hairdressers union; and set up a shop for three years on Amsterdam and 67th Street.”
During his last week on the job, Demetriou continued to serve his customers from Columbia University. He said when Eisenhower was president of Columbia, Mamie Eisenhower would get her bangs trimmed. Students call him ‘Mr Aris’.
His own career has not been spent in anonymity either, peaking in the 1940s and 1950s when he was known for his work on models and beauty queens. He is also an award winner and displays several trophies, one from a March 14, 1948, contest at the Plaza Hotel held by the Hairdressers Education Centre of New York.
He also won the Futurama category with a circular, mushroom creation, an explosive-looking style. “I called it the atomic bomb,” he told the New York Times, “Ah, what you could do with hair back then.”
“Standing in the time capsule of his salon, among the old-fashioned hair-drying stations, he recalled a century of hairstyles that mark the seasons of his life: the flapper, the upsweep, the beehive, the permanent wave, the shag and the wedge. Gone, alas, are the glory days of pins and curlers and slow-set coifs,” the article said.
“There’s no more artistry in hairstyling any more,” Demetriou said. “Everything is shampoo, cut and blow. The hair just hangs straight down. So boring.”
