Passing through rue Vavin, it is impossible to miss the flamboyant red storefront and its life-size superhero in the window (currently Superman, who has replaced Wonder Woman). A neighborhood institution for thirty years, this place is not strictly speaking a hairdressing salon “for children”. We welcome, of course, the little ones (from 16 months), but also teenagers and parents. Moreover, the promise is clearly inscribed on the facade: “Simon hairdresser ».
Simon is Simon Benbaruk, an affable boy who has the courtesy to enter the living room behind his smile. Wise as a picture, Tom has just had his hair cut. The 6-year-old boy proudly holds the red heart-shaped lollipop in his hand, a just reward for his angelic patience.
Nothing predestined Simon to take up the scissors one day. Born in Casablanca (Morocco), raised in Tel-Aviv (Israel), it was following a trip to Europe with three friends (just after serving in the army) that he stopped in Paris, where lives an aunt. In lack of money, he looks for a small job in order to buy a ticket to continue his journey. A cousin offers him to work in a hairdressing salon in the Les Halles district.
Simple but revolutionary idea
Even if he is content to shampoo and sweep hair, he likes the atmosphere, the contact with customers too. The profession returns quickly, to the point that in the end he is poached by the first hairdressing salon for children in Europe : In the country of Oscar. A passage, a few years later, at Bonton, the concept store for toddlers, at the request of which the young man created a hairdressing salon from scratch, allowed him to clarify his idea a little more. His ambition is simple but rather revolutionary: cut children’s hair, and offer parents the opportunity to take advantage of this time to have their hair done too. And he firmly believes in it.
“The habit started at Bonton: a mother asked me one day if I could cut her hair at the same time as her children, just to help out, and the idea suddenly came to me. After buying the salon Au pays d’Oscar from his former boss in 1996, he threw himself into the adventure. To invent this intergenerational place, he surrounded himself with beginners who only had their enthusiasm for them: Franklin Azzi for architecture (to whom we owe the boutiques of Isabel Marant in Los Angeles and Jérôme Dreyfuss in London ) and Domitille Brion (co-creator of the Soeur label) for the design. Without forgetting the illustrator Marie Perron, ex-designer of Kenzo, who repainted the mirrors with scenes from childhood. In the middle of the shop is a large red bench, where the kids come to gather to watch a 1928 Mickey cartoon.
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