Shops making the cut

SPOKANE, Wash. — It all started with a bad haircut.

In this midsize Eastern Washington city, where the mullet is still a socially acceptable hairstyle, Bill Nordstrom was disappointed after a trip to the barber.

The result was Weldon Barber, a string of upscale men-only barbershops devoted to the customer service his family's Nordstrom department stores made famous.

Nordstrom, 41, is the main investor in Weldon Barber, which opened six shops in Spokane and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, last fall.

The company's name, a play on the words "well done," was chosen in a series of meetings between Nordstrom and Julie Kembel, a longtime friend of Nordstrom's wife, Suzette.

The former college friends reunited after Nordstrom resigned in August 2000 as executive vice president of Nordstrom's East Coast operations and moved back to Spokane, where Suzette Nordstrom grew up.

A former executive vice president and cousin of Nordstrom Inc. President Blake Nordstrom, Nordstrom spent time in the 1980s at the family's Spokane store.

"My background (in retail sales) led me to believe it's possible to do this," Nordstrom said in a recent interview. "My wife said maybe this is something that would be a good business. It occurred to me it might be."

Visitors to the shops are offered coffee, cola or bottled water as they wait in oversized leather chairs, a coffee table overflowing with men's magazines under a large plasma screen television.

For $22, customers get scalp and shoulder massages, hot mint-scented facial towels, a razor trim and haircut by a specially trained barber. Hair coloring and beard trims are extra.

Weldon Barber is being launched when traditional barbers are closing, but spa-style men's parlors are gaining popularity.

Several national marketing surveys estimate the men's hair care industry to be a $10 billion to $15 billion a year proposition. The Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts growth in specialty barbering, with traditional barbershops hanging on.

"We have been looking at growth in the number of salon-spas exclusively for men," said Wendy Liebmann, president of WSL Strategic Retail, a New York market research company.

"When we started looking at the industry, traditional barbershops were, statistically, the fastest-shrinking category in the 'beauty' industry," Nordstrom said.