| |
A customer’s photograph of a busy day at Cuts in Soho |
Waiting for haircut, customers’ snaps off the top of their heads!
Barber sends clientele out on the streets to take original photographs of Soho
WHAT to do while you wait for a trim has always been a bit of a hairy dilemma.
The choice of flicking through a dog-eared back issue of a magazine you would never pay for, or trying to compose yourself for a new look above the white noise of salon small talk doesn’t quite cut the mustard.
One Soho hairdresser’s which has cropped the beehives and barnets of some of the biggest celebrities, including Sienna Miller and David Bowie, has come up with a novel idea to stave off boredom in the barbers.
Over the last few months, Cuts, in Frith Street, has been supplying customers with disposable cameras and letting them loose on the streets of Soho to work their grey matter.
The resulting 1,000 or so photographs, a selection of which will go on display in the Photographers’ Gallery on April 18, present a never-before seen view of the area – full of mysterious, baffling and reflective vignettes of Soho life.
Among the images are the tattooed hand of Prodigy frontman Keith Flynt and snaps taken by Travis’s Fran Healy and actor Rupert Everett.
Steve Brooks, co-owner of Cuts, said: “Before we would just boot people out of the door with a magazine and send them over the road for a coffee.
“All hair appointments run late so everyone jumped at the opportunity to get creative while they waited. Ironically it was the professionals who seemed to take the worst photos.
“We’ve got a lot of sex shops and pictures of vomit which you might expect. That’s Soho.
“But we’ve also got a lot of imaginative and thoughtful pictures.”
Cuts, which has been in Soho for 25 years, is acknowledged as inventing a number of hair crazes, including the ‘Shark Fin’, made famous by Fran from Travis, and the currenly in-vogue ‘Buddha Hawk’.
The exhibition, aptly called Running Late, will run from April 18 to June 15 at the Photographers’ Gallery in Great Newport Street. The pictures will then go back to the hairdresser’s to go on display. |
 |
|
| |
| |
