WORKING -- Donnie Hawley

-- By Christine Carrillo, photo by [tk]

HE IS

A rockabilly barber taking his customers back to the days of

straight-razor shaves and old-style tapers

OLD SCHOOL MEETS NEW

As the owner of Hawleywood’s Barber Shop in Costa Mesa and one of only

three barbers, Donnie Hawley is doing the job he always saw himself

doing. Wearing a traditional white barber coat, nicely pressed slacks and

a pair of swanky two-tone shoes, the 31-year-old has developed his craft

to create an atmosphere more in tune with the styles of the ‘40s and ‘50s

than the current trends of the millennium.

The countless tattoos found covering his arms stray from his goal to

revive the vanishing barbering trade by breathing life into the old

barber shop ways, but they underline the shop’s present-day, old-style

connection.

“We do every haircut that’s out there, but we specialize in the old

style, and we have the clientele that wants it,” he said.

MEN ONLY

Believing that a barber shop is one of the last places for authentic

male bonding, Hawley has no female clients and no intention of changing

that.

In a barber shop, “a man can still be a man and feel comfortable

reading a Playboy and having a beer. . . . People don’t understand that

for some reason, except for our customers,” he said.

Although beer is no longer served at Hawleywood’s Barber Shop --

Hawley used to have a keg on the premises -- and the Playboys, if around

at all, aren’t visibly available, the atmosphere does exude a manly

domain.

With the ‘40s and ‘50s memorabilia covering the walls and swinging

music in the background, the men, both young and old, are pampered with

classic hot towel treatments and male banter.

NOT FOR A MILLION

The banter, jokes, camaraderie and, of course, hair cutting is

precisely what drove Hawley to pursue his barber shop vision.”If I won

the lottery, I’d show up and cut hair,” he said. “I love it. . . my

customers, my relationships with them, just being there, it’s fun. I wake

and do something I love every day.”With no immediate plans to expand,

Hawley does have hopes to eventually add to his themed shop by adopting a

female hair salon, thus allowing him to cap his vision as “Hawleywood’s

Guys and Dolls”. For now, Hawley wants to keep things as they are. A

small, three-chaired shop, with male clients and the traditional red,

white and blue barber pole outside to top it off.

“I feel like if I [expanded] it wouldn’t be Hawleywood’s Barber Shop,”

he said. “It wouldn’t be special.”