Sable & FourthRichmond VA Book
Sections

Inside the barbershop

Precision cuts and traditional shop craft

The daily work behind the chair and the tradition it comes from: combs and shears at work, clean tapers, heavy porcelain chairs and the striped pole that still marks a barbershop from across the street. Sable & Fourth Barbers keeps that craft going on Sable Street.

Barbering, past and present

Barbers in white coats cutting customers' hair at a row of chairs in a 1940s works barbershop.
Plate 01A company barbershop in 1946: every chair taken and every barber standing in a white coat. The tools have changed since; the steady, one-guest-at-a-time craft has not.
A red, white and blue barber pole mounted on a brick wall.
Plate 02A barber pole against brick. The red, white and blue stripe is the oldest sign in the trade, and it still reads from across a street.
A set of old barber's hand tools laid out inside a glass display case.
Plate 03Older barbering hand tools kept under glass. Hand clippers like these cut by squeezing rather than by motor, and they set the shape a modern taper still follows.
Several pairs of haircutting scissors arranged on a dark wooden rack.
Plate 04Haircutting shears laid out on the rack for shear-over-comb work. Blade length changes how a line sits, so more than one pair stays within reach.
A barber combing through a caped customer's hair before cutting.
Plate 05Combing out under the cape before a single cut is made, to read the crown whorl and the growth direction. Every appointment at the shop begins this way.
A long row of barber chairs with barbers at work in a 1930s government office barbershop.
Plate 06Heavy porcelain-and-leather chairs in a Washington office-building barbershop, photographed by Harris & Ewing, with a barber behind each one and a mirror the length of the wall.
A comb drawn back through slicked hair during a barbering appointment.
Plate 07A comb run back through a medium-shine, water-soluble pomade. Product goes on after the cut, never before, so the shape is judged on the hair as it grows.
A barber pole fixed to a painted cinder-block wall.
Plate 08A barber pole on painted cinder block. The helix turns on a cylinder, so the stripe seems to climb forever and never arrive.

Talk to the shop

Bring the photo, get an honest answer

Send an inspiration photo or a description, and a barber will say straight up whether it suits the hair's density and growth, which service fits and what it costs.

The column

A short note when the shop changes something

Holiday hours, a barber joining or leaving, a price that moves. Two or three notes a year and nothing else.

The privacy notice explains what happens to the address.

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