Honoring Salon Guys: Jerry Gordon

Photo by Marc Hauser

A few weeks ago, the internet became tear-stained with well-deserved memorial articles for the late Jerry Gordon. As a stylist of 60 years experience, an innovative businessmen, and warm human being in general, his death is a huge loss to the styling world, and especially to his community. He has left behind plenty of stories and examples for other hair artists and salon owners to follow, and an especially great example of a male successfully operating in the salon world.

It can sometimes be a rough and even scary thing for males to tackle. Stereotypes of male hairdressers can leave a lot of men timidly hiding the shears and Salon magazine under the pillow before someone discovers their passion for beauty in hair. While there's a growing number of fantastic male hair artists who break down the stereotype of the effeminate, lisping stylist, it's nice to have male stylists with a full successful arch to look to and say “no, really, anyone is allowed to do this.” Jerry Gordon lived the kind of life anyone would envy, stylist or otherwise. He was a writer in his own special way with a deep love of literature that goes beyond what anyone expects from hairdressers. He married, traveled the world, met incredible people, raced ferraris, and grasped the full spectrum of life into his wide-sweeping arms.

His life experiences are also what made him a great argument against the point we made in last week’s blog on talking while styling, because one of the most cherished memories people have of him are the stories he would tell while working.

It's been said the salon was his stage, the haircut his performance. Which calls into question, what really is the art of the hairdresser? Because if it's only in styling hair, Jerry Gordon managed something far beyond that, where each haircut was weighted with a different story. Perhaps some of his technique suffered from all the talking, but many of his clients, who still walked out looking fantastic, would probably tell you it was a small cost for the heightened experience his stories brought.

There's a lot to be learned in looking back at Jerry Gordon's life, but, for today, the focus is on the fullness of his character. To men who are still afraid of stepping behind the chair under the title “salon,” and to everyone who is already a hairdresser but believes they can't be anything else, look closely at this man. He will blow all of your expectations of life out of the water.