Cuts by Russ

by katie callahan
staff writer

“That’s him. That’s Russell,” said junior Ian McKay as sophomore Russell Wood walked into Wiley with only his skinny brown briefcase. It holds the scissors and other supplies of his trade that he can’t carry around campus. Seeing a reporter, he joked that he needed to talk to his agent before any interviews. With the sound of Pyramids, a Texas band who Wood describes as “indie pop soundscapes with pop influences” lingering in the background, McKay referred to Wood as his “music connoisseur.”
“Sometimes it’s the French pop of Yelle, or some old-school doom metal like Pentagram and Saint Vitus, or indie rock like The National or Interpol or Bon Iver,” said Wood. “I take requests also, but most people just tell me to play whatever.”
But this isn’t just a relaxing afternoon of music; it’s an appointment.
“What are you looking for?” Wood asked as McKay settled into a chair in Wiley’s lower lounge. A common question from any hair stylist, but that isn’t where the conversation stops. The haircut itself is only the product of a relationship between the stylist and customer; the experience is what matters.
“You’re very conversational, very focused on making it an experience,” McKay said to Wood. “You’re not just cutting hair.”
Wood agreed that he likes cutting hair for the experience. He said he likes the comfortable and casual environment.
“Yeah, I like to involve people,” Wood said. “I usually cut people’s hair in the Hendricks bathrooms, and guys will come by and just hang out and talk with us or [the person] whose hair I’m cutting. So it’s like being in a barber shop, but in a bathroom.”
Wood, an art major, said he taught himself to cut hair his freshman year in an effort to save money. Now, as a sophomore, he charges $5 to cut students’ hair, and has remained busy with the business he and his friends previously joked about: Cuts by Russ.
Wood has 40-50 unique clients and 20 regular clients, mainly male with a few female clients who want trims. When focusing on a cut, Wood said he visualizes the haircut that someone requests as a start, then works with the hair, generally starting from the sides and back and making his way to the top and front of the head.
According to Wood, the most common cut this year has been the short-on-the-sides, long-on-top look. Last year it was the long-in-back look. He makes about $50 a month.
Jack Urner, a junior and employee of the business, said though Wood may have approached the business ironically, he did not.
“I’ve never considered a Cut by Russ a joke,” Urner said. “There’s nothing funny about a strategically planned bowl cut.”
Wood said he is starting to realize that he stumbled upon a lucrative market.
“There’s a need for it because a lot of college students don’t have a lot of money to go somewhere and get a professional haircut, so I just started it because people came and asked me to,” Wood said.
Not only has Wood cut the hair of his hall-mates in Hendricks, but he has also cut students’ hair at hostels and apartments when he was abroad in Florence, Venice and Paris last semester.
His first time cutting another person’s hair, however, ended less than desirably, but Wood said he’s gotten better with experience.
“I got a little comfortable and screwed up and took a pretty big chunk out of the back of his hair,” Wood said. “I don’t think I’ve cut his hair since then, even though I’ve learned a lot more since then.”
Two of Wood’s friends, Luke Angevine, a junior who has received about 10 haircuts from Wood, and Urner, helped start Wood’s business. Today, their roles in the business are somewhat ambiguous. Angevine said he is a product of Wood’s haircutting and pitches Wood’s work with every opportunity, while Urner is the “poster child of the business” and inspires people to get their hair cut by Wood.
“Jack became the face of Cuts by Russ, and I was the voice of Cuts by Russ, and Russ was the hands, the artist, the one who makes it all happen,” said Angevine. “It’s all him. But we just kind of wanted to get a little part in it.”
Urner described his role as the face of Cuts by Russ.
“I don’t quite know what this means,” Urner said. “I just smile when I’m told, and frown when it’s appropriate.”
Cuts by Russ spreads by word of mouth, as well as a Facebook and Twitter page. What’s next for the business? T-shirts. Mainly though, Wood said he wants his advertising to come from his customers.
“I like to think my haircuts speak for themselves,” Wood said.
Here in Wiley, McKay is getting ready to get his headshot taken for the ASB elections, and he trusts only one person with his hair: Russell Wood.