Emmanuel Garcia is a 24-year-old barber currently based in Northern San Diego County. For the past few years, he’s remained the number one barber in the area, specializing in medium to long-length hair. Now finally, the magician is ready to reveal his secrets.
On Tuesday, September 10th Garcia and fellow barber Alex Montes will teach a class divided into two sections. Montes’s section focuses on a more traditional cut, a slick back skin fade, while Garcia will branch out and demonstrate how to cut the infamous wolf cut, a new modern-day staple amongst men.
The barber community is a long-standing one that continues evolving with each passing season. Hairstylists are an inconspicuous piece of human infrastructure that we don’t often notice until the very last minute. That moment we know all too well when we look at ourselves in the mirror, furrow our brow, and say, “I think it’s time for a haircut.” We’re not even really aware of it even though your hair doesn’t ever stop growing. For some, it could be a nuisance, but for barbers like Garcia, it’s a beautiful fact of life and even an art form.
“My favorite thing about hair is that it just keeps growing. So you get to just recreate yourself or maintain yourself, and the longer you keep a haircut, the more ongoing the message is that ‘I want to be perceived this specific way,’ whereas the more often you change a haircut, you’re also showing, ‘I’m going through seasons.’” said Garcia.
A stroke of fate led Garcia down the path of haircutting. As a teenager, Garcia had to cut his hair to serve as a chambelán at a friend’s Quinceañera. However, after seeing the poor quality work from his local hairdressers, and not wanting to lose too much of his hair, he opted to cut it himself. Afterward, Garcia said his friends and family thought it looked pretty good, so he continued maintaining his own hair. Eventually, one thing led to another, and what then was an impulsive decision spiraled into a full-blown career path. Soon enough, he became his friend and family’s personal hairdresser, before renting a space at the Filoso Barber Company in Vista, California. Today, Garcia is the best barber money can buy for medium to long-length haircuts.
Gone are the days when the low-taper fade was the pinnacle of men’s style. Nowadays, men feel more encouraged to experiment and grow out their hair. This is especially true following the COVID-19 pandemic where many were forced to grow their manes due to major restrictions on person-to-person businesses.
In a way, men didn’t feel comfortable trying out different hairstyles until they were put in a position where they had no other choice. Garcia can relate to this himself, as he wasn’t encouraged to experiment with his hair until he was forced to by his friend’s birthday. In the end, his career followed like how it began, with him trying to learn ways to maintain a longer hairstyle. That being said, Garcia always felt comfortable with longer hair and quickly realized many men felt the same way.
A common salon experience for those with longer hair is when their hairstylist takes off too much length. So much to the point where they lose the effectiveness of their grown-out look. Miscommunications between clients and stylists often leave them with a haircut that’s impossible to put back together. Garcia, aware of this due to first-hand experience, knew he could be the solution. “I found myself getting more books by people with long hair because I had long hair and I was able to relate to what they did and didn’t want,” he said.
He finds cutting longer hair to be extremely rewarding and believes that longer hair will always be more customizable than shorter hair. “I’ll take this to the grave,” he remarked. It’s hard to disagree with him, as there are many ways someone can achieve a specific look with varying results. Often times it’s just a matter of getting there, subtracting hair until you’ve reached the apex.
This semi-recent trend in men’s style doesn’t come without its fair share of naysayers though. Purists exist in every artistic medium and hair is no different. There’s an unwritten rule in men’s fashion that’s made shorter cuts a permanent staple. Many barbers outright refuse to branch out and entertain longer hairstyles. Garcia recognizes this discrepancy and wants to close the gap.
On the topic, Garcia recalled multiple experiences he’s had with clients coming to him from other barbers, “A lot of my clients come from other barbers that shut down the client and so they ended up in my chair…And that gives me a lot of satisfaction, knowing that I was able to see their vision and bring it to life,” he said.
The differences between cutting long hair versus short hair may appear superficial to most, but Garcia maintains that the contrasting styles differ greatly in scale and scope. It requires different preparations, works different joints and needs different tools. To some, it’s probably intimidating as it’s a completely novel physical language but that’s also what makes it so exciting. The world isn’t always so kind to change, but longer hairstyles are reaching an unprecedented peak in popularity among men. Garcia says it’s here to stay.
“I really don’t believe long hair is gonna go away the way it did in like, early 2010 or 2018… I think people are just gonna start venturing out…,” he said.
In a way, that’s exactly what the class is about. Garcia is trying to widen the spectrum and lower the skill ceiling for barbers in North County. He wants people to move out of their comfort zones and try new things. The choice to split the class into traditional and non-traditional sections symbolically represents the fusion of both worlds into one cohesive mix.
In the past, Garcia’s released multiple tutorials on his social media about his iconic wolf cut but never before has he offered such an intimate look into his creative process. The class is a chance to see those procedures in a hands-on setting and really get to the bottom of what makes these cuts so intricate. That said, Garcia is also a fan of simplicity. He’s streamlined the hair-cutting process down to basic science and plans to teach the class in three parts. Starting with the prep work, then moving on to the length cutting, and finally ending with the styling process.
The class also acts as a farewell to his community as the following month, Garcia will be moving out of North County California. This will be his final chance to make an impact on his local community and spread his knowledge to the greater world around him.
“I have nothing to lose from everyone elevating themselves. I want them to see that it’s for their own good,” he said.
Emmanuel Garcia’s dual class with Alex Montes is on Tuesday, Sept. 10 at Filoso Barber Company in Vista, California.
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