The shop serves as a place of fellowship and sense of male identity. Here, Ismael Laboy greets a fellow student. (David Pierini/staff photographer)
The shop serves as a place of fellowship and sense of male identity. Here, Ismael Laboy greets a fellow student. (David Pierini/staff photographer)
Nasee Yehuda cuts a customers hair. Students must complete 1,500 hours of course work, including 600 of practical work in the shop. (David Pierini/staff photographer)
Sappington, center, has trained hundreds of barbers since she started His & Hers as a school in 1999. (David Pierini/staff photographer)
The Rev. J.W. Clay Brooks looks at his finished cut. (David Pierini/staff photographer)
Ernesto Medina brushes loose hairs from the forehead of a customer. (David Pierini/staff photographer)
Jake Rule keeps a steady hand as he finishes a hightop for Devounta Hudson. (David Pierini/staff photographer)
Tools and tuition are affordable with many able to payoff school with tip money, Sappington said. (David Pierini/staff photographer)
Negron concentrates on the head of Sam Davis. (David Pierini/staff photographer)
Instructor Armondo Peguerd guides Johnny Negron through a straight-razor shave. Rather than use the artificial haircut heads common in many barber schools, students train on live “models” who get their cuts for free. (David Pierini/staff photographer)
Students learn history, theory and technique with 900 hours in a classroom setting. (David Pierini/staff photographer)
School owner Elaine Sappington says students are taught how to speak to their customers to form relationships and build clientele. (David Pierini/staff photographer)
The camaraderie found at His & Hers is timeless, with warm greetings, jokes and talk about sports, music and politics. (David Pierini/staff photographer)
Styles come and go and their are dozens to be found on the posters on the walls of the His & Hers Barber School. (David Pierini/staff photographer)

You can request the latest hairstyles from any of the student barbers at the His & Hers Barber School at 5355 W. Madison Street, but the view from the chair can seem timeless.

Barbers-in-training wear short coats, practice the fine art of the straight-razor shave and dust off their customer’s faces with brushes sprinkled with talcum powder.

Those in the chairs hold still, eyes closed, while the waiting customers banter with the barbers, sharing jokes, talking politics and neighborhood news over the music of James Brown.

A sign reminds all that cursing is forbidden.

Elaine Sappington, who had a shop at this location for 18 years before turning it into a barber school in 1999, employs certified instructors and assistants to teach up to 25 students at a time with 900 hours in the classroom and 600 hours on the floor.

The school prepares them to take the state exam, but the social life of the shop teaches them about relationships.

“They learn to interact with their clients,” she said. “It’s important to learn how to build a clientele. Relationships are built in barbershops. People come for the fellowship.”