Since 1968, Mario has been a barber, he became known in the city, he was kept up to date with new work techniques and taught his son Michele the job of hairdresser.
Father and son work together, a mix of two different styles to satisfy every customer request.
Together with the Urban District of Commerce we met them and this is their story:
“Mario and Michele. A father and a son. The same kind gestures.
The same light and wise outlook on life.
Mario started in 1968, as an apprentice in the barber shop in Via Ventiquattro Maggio.
He started working for two main and equally important reasons. First of all because he had four brothers and five sisters and he needed to help at home. Secondly, for a sort of revenge. “As a child they always cut my hair like ‘Umberto I’ leaving only a tuft in front, standing upright. I could not take it anymore and so I took my revenge and I became a barber!”
He then grew his hair as he predicted the fashion would be in the 70s. ‘I liked it a lot – he says raising his chin – but then the military arrived and they shaved us all. A friend, who had made the train trip with me the day before, did not even recognise me!’
Mario, thick white hair and a wide gesticulation, fondly remembers his story and what he probably lived with greater tension in the story turns into a smile of the eyes.
Everything has led him to be what he is and to everything he is undoubtedly grateful.
‘Did I tell you about the balloon?’ he says amused and tells us of when a refresher course forced him to shave an inflatable balloon to check the accuracy and delicacy of his hands. While we think he wants to tell us how good he is, he continues, ‘and you know what happened? PUM! It immediately popped! But not once, at least two or three times!’
He spreads his arms, raises his eyes to the sky, puts his hands in his face like he was now that awkward little boy. Behind him, Michele smiles tenderly, who knows how many times he’s heard this story!
Father and son, elegant and light-hearted, in their checkered uniform they have the same harmony as a musical duet. They listen, wait and respect each other’s pauses and times. A harmony that enchants.
Michele joined Mario twenty years ago, educated by his father’s passion and by the same sensibility towards human beings. Both think that the best part of this work is the relationship with people. ‘We are a bit like psychologists,’ says Mario, and even though today people are a bit more closed, here, in the time it takes for the beard and hair they talk about themselves, often entrusting them with pieces of life that they do not share with anyone else.
Michele is also a teacher at the national hairdressing academy (in via Torretta). Two evenings a week, after the usual eight hours or more of work, he spends with young people. ‘They want to learn the technique, but it will be only the true passion that keeps them going’. It’s only necessary to look him in the eye to understand how precious this experience is to him.
On his day off, Mario dedicates himself to the garden and to the vegetable patch, he can never leave the scissors alone! Michele, on the other hand, goes around with his beloved bike and tells us: “Once a customer, returning from the sea, brought me a bottle of liquor in the shape of a motorbike. It really surprised me. I never would’ve thought he’d have even known about my passion!’.
This happens in Mario and Michele’s salon – for 50 years in Via Quarenghi. The trimming of beards and cutting of hair is almost always an excuse to talk, to exchange small gestures of care and to smile a little bit about the world.
As we reflect on this together, a gentleman with a hat and scarf peeks in from the front door, looks at Mario with an affectionate grin and says: ‘We are friends the same eh! Atalanta deserved it’.
We are friends all the same: this is also part of Via Quarenghi.”