NEVER OUT OF STYLE
Bizarde has moved a few blocks down the street but it carries on Coupe Bizzarre’s free-spirited tradition
Stylist Meghan Mulvaney cuts the hair of pierre-luc at the bizarde hair salon on st-laurent blvd. five years after closing coupe bizarre and reopening with a new name and location, the salon continues to respect its predecessor’s free-spirited vibe.
True to her name, Véronique Cry left work on June 30, 2013, with tears in her eyes.
She had been employed at landmark St-Laurent Blvd. hair salon Coupe Bizzarre for 17 years — much of that time as its manager — and everything was about to change.
“I went to have a beer and I couldn’t stop crying,” she recalled recently. “I wondered, ‘What’s going to happen?’”
Cry was about to buy out original owners Jimi Imij and Robert Pieter — who had long since relocated to Toronto — and take over the Montreal outpost of a business that had come to define our city’s hair, flair and all-around cool like few others can. And like any great cut, she was scared to death of messing it up.
“They trained me and gave me the passion for this job,” she explained.
“I was so sad. I called them, and they said, ‘No, no, no, we’ll be there for you.’ I was scared I was going to change things. It was a place I loved to work; what would happen if I bought it and my vision of the place wasn’t the same, or the stress of running a business (ruined it for me)?
“In the end, it didn’t change anything. We closed July 1 for Canada Day, on July 2 we opened, I came back and had as much fun as ever. I realized, ‘OK, life goes on.’ I’ve never regretted a thing.’ ”
For the past two years, the renamed Bizarde has been getting comfortable in its new location, a few blocks up at the corner of Duluth Ave., which it turns out is the street on which the original Coupe Bizzarre was born in 1986.
Cry had swung by on occasion in those early years to buy red and purple hair dye. Coupe Bizzarre was known to have the wildest colours in town, which made it a haven for a rebellious teen.
“It was very underground,” Cry said. “It was exciting. I would go
there and see the different styles of the people who worked there, and the clientele. The atmosphere was super nice, and Duluth St. had a really laid-back feel.”
Cry enrolled in hairdressing school straight out of high school. When it came time for an internship, she beelined for Coupe Bizzarre and never looked back, working as a receptionist and assistant while training as a hairdresser.
“If they hadn’t hired me, I wouldn’t be doing this today,” she said. “It was really the place — it clicked. Other salons were more snobby and traditional. (At Coupe Bizzarre) there was something not just in the way of working but the team spirit. It was festive, like a group of friends. People would do things together and stay after work.”
With Bizarde, Cry has sought to preserve that warmth and camaraderie, as well as the salon’s edgy yet unpretentious approach to cutting hair. “We don’t stick to conventions,” she said. “We take the time to talk to people and offer something that suits the client.”
Receptionist Rubin Gauthier cuts a striking figure with her pale goth makeup, teased black hair and all-black attire. For her, the salon’s appeal can be summed up by one thing. “The fact that we don’t listen to commercial radio,” she said. “So it doesn’t make me crazy.”
Hairdresser Yannick Ross (who, full disclosure, cuts my hair) has worked at Bizarde/Coupe Bizzarre for 17 years. It’s a place where he can be his unconventional self and help his clients do the same.
He remembers his first visit to the salon in the late 1990s, being simply in awe.
“It seemed like a place full of free, creative, alternative people,” he said. “I was pretty intimidated. Everyone was so eccentric and beautiful.”
Fashion isn’t quite as in-yourface as it was then, so the Bizarde team has learned to adapt.
“I have customers from two to 81 years old,” Ross said. “We do a bit of everything, but with our signature. We specialize in the dry cut, prêt-à-porter. We want your hair to place itself. We do a lot of texture so it grows in well … to emphasize the natural qualities of the hair rather than transform it into something it isn’t.”
Bizarde’s anything-goes attitude has made customer Meags Fitzgerald feel right at home during the past two years.
“It feels inclusive,” she said. “I’m queer and I don’t feel upheld to the same beauty standards that traditional salons make you feel upheld to. I just gave my hairdresser a hug goodbye. We catch up every four weeks. We know about each other’s lives now. I see her more than some friends.”
Going to the salon is a family affair for Catalina Briceno, who has been getting her hair cut by Cry for 20 years and brings her two-yearold, her 12-year-old and, on this day, her 16-year-old son, Édouard, in to do the same.
“I like the freedom you find here,” she said. “You can be punk or a 60-year-old lady. What counts is you’re free to choose your style, and anything goes. There is a lot of talk about diversity these days. People want to be inclusive,” added Briceno. “Here, it’s always been like that. It’s fantastic.”