IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 7 ENGLISH | Page 17

hairstyling was dignified; then, share it. If
you don’t share, you haven’t done a thing.”
Thirty years ago, Papito had no idea that
he’d end up being passionate about this
work. “I was a very poor student. I gave my
father a lot of headaches. I decided to work,
and at 17 enthusiastically started a course on
barbering. I finished it with passion for barbering in my blood, thanks to Professor
Francisco Burton and Director Evelio
Lecurt. I went from being a terrible student
to creating a career that has allowed me to
earn a living decently.”
What about the beauty parlor?
“My arrival was almost by pure chance.
From the beginning, I worked at a beauty
parlor. I started to be interested in the things
that were done at them to women in them.
Later on, I had the chance to work at the
first unisex salon in Cuba, the Salón Nuevo
Estilo, on Refugio Street. That was in about
1987 or 1988. Before that, beauty parlors
and barbershops were separate. At the salon,
we were actually two barbers and two hair
stylists. That has been less and less the case
due to a social and psychological process.
Before, a man wouldn’t dare dry his hair
with a hairdryer; now they dye their hair and
do their eyebrows.”
But in the 1980s…
“When I told my f ather I wanted to be a barber, he wanted to kill me; if I had told him I
wanted to be a hairstylist, he would have
killed me. I faced many prejudices. Little by
little, I erased them from my father’s thinking. Taboos are often inherited.” For a long
time, Papito worked for the State. He began
in the Jesús María neighborhood and ended
up at the Habana Libre Hotel. In 1999, he

decided to become self-employed. “I think I
was one of the first hairdressers to go from
working for the State to being private. That
year, I started the Arte Corte project, whose
three core values are art, history, and career.
I started with an economic project, a beauty
parlor, and a dream, to dignify hairstyling as
a career. To this day, the economic project
has allowed me to keep my dream going.”
At the beginning, this did not take place in
the Santo Ángel neighborhood, but rather all
over the capital. It became a national movement. A group of hairdressers got together to
travel to the other provinces and create a
cultural movement within hairstyling.
“We would pay for our own trips, but let’s
be fair: we got a lot of support from institutions. The National Center for Culture, directed then by Fernando Rojas, helped us a
lot. This was a non-profit enterprise.”
A living museum
It is located at Papito’s house, on the second
floor of a building on Aguiar between Peña
Pobre and Avenida de Misiones. Arte Corte
not only offers great haircuts (including
shampoos and conditioning), but also the
chance to travel in time. The chairs in which
clients are serviced were made between the
19th and 20th centuries. There are also implements associated with the trade on display, things like pincers, scissors, and
blades, and other antique items Papito has
collected over the past 15 years. “It is a way
of introducing to people the history of the
trade.” One can also find paintings and
sculptures by local artists, among them his
own work, since he is a painting aficionado.
Foreign groups visit this site, but getting is
free.

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