FASHION: CiRCA REVIEW AND INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW GENSER
Tuesday, August 25, 2009 at 5:42PM | Elana Steingart If you spend enough time at a nightclub, you'll probably get offered all kinds of strange and wonderful things. But when was the last time you were offered a free haircut?
The famous dentist chair in the Bathroom Bar at CiRCA nightclub in Toronto
Matthew Genser is a young, talented, very fashion-forward stylist who cleverly set up a cross-promotion with CiRCA nightclub. On the second Saturday of every month, he spends the night cutting hair in the electronica/dance room, fondly called the "bathroom bar" due to its sweeping white plastic platforms in smooth organic shapes. Some weeks he'll do a hair show with a rainbow of hair models, each with a different vivid hair colour, and do fabulous sculptural blow-outs that look like headpieces from Babylon 5. Other days, he'll take people from the crowd and freshen up their look for tips.
How fabulous — getting your hair done at the club!
CiRCA is one of the few spots in Toronto's clubbing district to have some real spirit and longevity. The building was occupied years ago by Playdium, an enormous multi-storey video game arcade. Now, on the weekends, the gigantic central room is filled with jungle music, and upstairs rooms have electronica/dance and hip hop. The place has an enormous capacity — 2800 guests — and seems to be endless, with four flights of stairs full of people coming and going among the different floors. The hallways are lined with mural art and creepy glass-encased sculptural installations, or windows into rooms for performance art pieces. The place is just interesting.
Clearly whoever's in charge of this place has a strong aesthetic. Pairing with Matt Genser is an innovative and mutually beneficial choice. He creates a spectacle in the bouncing dance room, lit by huge circular overhead dentist lights. Crowds mass around the platform where he's working, watching his shears fly. As any club owner knows, crowds beget crowds, and then the dance room is hopping.
Because getting your hair cut involves sitting in a giant chair under bright lights in front of a crowd of clubgoers, Matt cleverly always brings along a makeup artist - usually one who does body paint as well - to make girls glamourous while they're getting their hair done. Again, mutually beneficial: Matt's work is complemented by hot-looking faces, and the girls' hearts are warmed, cherishing the feeling that they are, at that moment, the hottest chick in the room.
You know exactly what I'm talking about.
The most recent Matthew Genser/CiRCA event was a 'taking people from the crowd' night. He did haircuts and blowouts while Andrée-Anne Boisvert did makeup and body art. She drew birds, flowers, spirals, and even a treble clef, on thighs, shoulders and cleavage.
Andrée-Anne took requests of shapes and colours: whatever you want wherever you want, she'd draw it. Within reason.
Andrée-Anne experimented with birds and flowers on my back
For hair, there was a Farrah Fawcett request in memory of her recent passing. A bunch of dudes went from shaggy to awesome.
From shag to electro-punk
Shy friends stood by taking photos of their braver companions sitting on the chair under the big lights.
Two friends will create an excitement feedback loop.
Shy friends trying to camouflage their shyness egged on their companions, daring them to get up on the chair even while being unwilling themselves.
Girls would venture forward, enticed by the makeup and body paint, and end up being in line for a haircut as well. Pampering begets pampering.
I go with Matt to all of these events. We've been friends for just under a year; we met when he was looking for someone with healthy, undyed, kind of long and wavy hair to try out a new haircut he was developing. He was friends with one of my staff at the comic book shop where I was working, and when he came in to visit, it was a total "you'll do" moment. I was excited to become his personal guinea pig. Since then, I have been rocking his own original haircut, and have gone from my natural dark brown to blonde, turquoise/hot pink/blonde, and its current incarnation of blue and pink. Under his expert guidance, my hair has stayed soft and healthy through all of these potentially traumatic changes. I hand out his card to strangers on a regular basis. I probably get between five and thirty compliments on my hair each day. Matt and I also hang out and play Street Fighter together.
At the CiRCA shows, I do my part, going up to people and offering them a haircut on stage. At the beginning of the night, I usually get the same responses that charity campaigners get: averted eyes, funny looks, a ready 'no'. But then it's my turn to get up in the chair. I get a trim and a blowout. I am transformed from a girl with funky hair to a vision of technicolour glamour. Now, people take me seriously, and they're lined up for their chance to sit where I sat.
You get the immediate impression that Matt is an artist, tattooed and lip-pierced and wearing his low-slung hip holster full of shears. He works with astonishing speed, moved by instinct and intuition. For men, especially: he runs his fingers through the hair and snips here and there, apparently from tactile sense. But when he's done, it's a very visual, clever and artful style, with smooth, electro-punk personality. He's fast but confident, and you feel good in his hands.
I see Matt frequently to keep my colour looking bright. At one of our appointments, we sat down for a quick Q&A for Sharp Objex.
Elana: On your business card, it says you're an artistic haircutter. Which is it? Are you an artist or a haircutter?
Matthew: The great thing is, I just happen to be both. I've been drawing since I was five years old, and I've always wanted to be either an artist or a psychologist, and as a hairdresser I feel like I get to do both. I'm an artistic haircutter because as opposed to just cutting the hair, I view each head of hair as a sculpture that I get to shape. So, every time I cut someone's hair, even if it's the same haircut, I'm not following certain steps. I'm looking at it and cutting the shape into it that I like, so it's more like a sculpture than a haircut.
E: If it were up to you, would everyone have crazy bright-coloured hair?
M: No, because if everybody had crazy bright-coloured hair, then I wouldn't get to stand out as much, and my clients wouldn't stand out as much.
E: Ah, so the goal is to get people to stand out?
M: Somewhat.
E: Do you believe in selecting specific hairstyles for it to flatter specific faces, or developing a haircut so gorgeous that anyone would be improved by it?
M: I believe that there is no such thing as a certain haircut that would improve anyone, just because, for instance, people will say, what's in right now? Is the bob in right now? Is long hair in right now? What about a bang? Everyone's face is different, so there's no such thing as a haircut that would flatter everyone. Just like the bob will sometimes look great on people, and on other people it'll look terrible, so everyone kind of has a different hair and a different face. So you want to do what suits the person to the best of your ability. So that's what I try to do.
E: Symmetry or asymmetry? Go!
M: Personally, I love asymmetric cuts. I think they're really different and when people see it it looks really cool. At the same time it's not for everyone, right? Like certain people that are very conservative, even though you can have a professional-looking asymmetric cut, if they're very old-fashioned, conservative, most likely they're going to want to have a symmetric haircut. So it's mostly whatever the client wants. But if it's up to me, I like asymmetric.
E: Okay, so, basic history questions: how long have you been cutting hair?
M: I've only been cutting hair for about three years.
E: And how did you get into it?
M: Oh god. Very long story. Basically I was in high school, I fell in love with a girl, and she broke my heart. So I wanted to leave high school. So I took co-op to get out of school. I tried to get into carpentry, but I couldn't do that, and the teacher suggested I go work at a salon called Natural Solutions. I said no way, I don't want to be in a hair salon. I didn't think that was my kind of thing. But after I did the co-op, I realized, wow, I get to be surrounded by people, talk to people, cut hair, and it's like getting to be an artist and a psychologist at the same time. People tell you their problems. Also, by the end of your career, you end up with a whole pile of people that you've grown up with. You get to see all sorts of things happen to them. Like one of my clients just recently had her first baby, so that was pretty cool.
E: What inspires you?
M: People everywhere. Like when I go on the bus, I'll see people, especially on the subway — and that's part of why I like taking the subway, because when you're on there you see everyone with all sorts of different hairstyles, different colours. Sometimes you see things and you think, wow, that's a really good haircut, I want to try doing something like that. Or other times like you'll see the opposite and be like, wow, there's a haircut that I wish I could change, right? So basically I'm inspired every day by all the people around me.
E: Where do you see yourself in five years?
M: Not really sure, but, I plan to eventually have my own salon and just keep working hard and doing what I love.
Matthew will next be at CiRCA on September 19. Please come and mention Sharp Objex! CiRCA is located at 126 John Street, near John & Richmond, in the heart of Toronto's clubbing district.
Matthew Genser works regularly in three salons around the Greater Toronto Area. You can book appointments by phone at (416) 400-4365. Please also visit his website at matthewgenserslikeacircle.com for photo galleries and other information.
Matthew and I
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