by Mike Beggs photography Steve Uhraney
Barber shops are back in style – but
with a contemporary spin.
For instance, at the new Eikonic
Academy of Barbering and Beauty,
720 Burnhamthorpe Rd. W., Unit 13,
today’s younger professionals
will feel equally comfortable getting
a traditional straight blade shave,
highlights, or “hand detailing”.
But in addition to being an upscale
salon/barber shop with 13 professional
hair cutters on staff, Eikonic
is also an accredited private career
college offering full-time, and part-time
degrees in Barbering, and Hair
Styling (founded by master barber
Martin Truong, and his wife Jessica
Hoach).
“There has not been a barber-focused
college for the last 32 years in
Ontario,” Hoach says.
“In the Eighties, men started going
to salons and stopped going to barbers.”
Since 2010, they have been running
the Eikonic House of Barbers in Bramalea
City Centre, named among the
Top 200 best-managed hair salons in
Ontario for 2016 and 2017 by Salon
Today magazine.
They’ve been seeking accreditation
as a private career college for several
years.
“We went from the barber shop
to doing workshops, and realized
there’s a need for more formal education,”
she elaborates.
At this 6,800-square-foot facility,
they train their students for both
hands-on cutting, and business
skills – between the 42 barber stations
and 10 hair washing stations
up front, and the three lab spaces in
back.
“It’s very exciting. It has been a long
time coming,” Truong says. “We had
this idea from the very beginning.”
“We have the shop in Brampton,
but our main focus here is better education.”
As a teen growing up in Mississauga,
Truong, “loved to change the style
and colour of my hair all the time”.
He started out styling women’s hair,
before moving into men’s grooming.
“I didn’t know about barbering until
somebody told me I’m a good barber,”
he grins.
At Eikonic they teach both classic
barbering techniques, and “the fade”
technique, now practiced by urban
barbers (mostly using buzzers).
“Urban barbers lack the skill set for
a scissors cut,” he relates. “But once
you know the fundamentals, then
you can pick your brand of cutting.”
In addition, Eikonic offers a variety
of workshops – from Barber Navigation
to Shaving, to Cosmotology, as
well as presenting larger events like,
“The British Barbers Are Coming” at
University of Toronto at Mississauga.
One young student named Tristan
came all the way from Ottawa to Eikonic,
for a three-day workshop on
Scissors Cutting.
“I opened a barber shop in my
basement a year ago. I came here to
buy scissors, and found out about the
workshop,” he relates. “I really liked
the way they took the time to give me
an education, before I made the purchase.”
For more information, go online to
www.eikonicacademy.com.