Editors Note: The complete article can be found in our inaugural The Avenue Men’s Magazine Fall 2013 issue. Click on the link below to purchase a hard or digital copy.
During the 1960’s and 70’s the Netherlands was heavily influenced by the Rolling Stones and the Beatles music, style and fashion. Young men wanted the Stones or Beatles look but many barbershops could not create it so they went to salons for haircuts and barbershops were becoming irrelevant. The music, fashion and style influence was so great the craft of barbering was beginning to disappear.
Two Gentlemen, Bertus and Leen are keeping the craft of barbering alive in the Netherlands and fueling an international revival.
Bertus was one of the last students at a barber school that offered training in Gentlemen haircuts. Sadly, the schools in the Netherlands only have unisex training where men learn perms and hair coloring.
Bertus and Leen, the Scumfathers, each have 22 years of experience barbering. In 2011 they decided to open a barbershop and according to Bertus, “we really wanted to 
open a shop for men only as an answer to all the unisex shops where men are forced to sit next to women with thousands of foils in their hair, getting a haircut by some sixteen year old girl fresh out of beauty school with no experience with men’s hair.” The barbershop is called Schorem Haarsnijder en Barbier located in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The word “Schorem” means Scumbag.
I was amazed to learn there are no appointments at the shop, Gentlemen, you will have to sit and wait your turn. You might be wondering what if a superstar or billionaire came in would they let them cut to the front? But according to Bertus, “we never take appointments, not even if your the emperor of China, we think one of the main reasons guys go to a barbershop is to escape from their every day routine and chat with their peers.” The shop is also “woman-free” because they want Gentlemen to be themselves without having to change their attitudes, jokes or personalities…..
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