Renaissance of a Rapunzel: From Long Locks to Liberation

Victoria’s eternal struggle with her long hair and her desire for transformation, signalling a journey of self-discovery and empowerment, as she commences the next stage of her journey

Prologue

It was my first time away from home. The air filled with the scent of freshly brewed coffee and the distant sound of laughter drifted from the campus café. Little did I know, it would become a backdrop to an adventure that would redefine who I was. I had planned to blend in with the other students in my course, floating through this new chapter peacefully. But right at that moment, tangled in a mess of long, loose hair, I felt anything but serene.

All my life, everyone had tried to dissuade me from cutting my hair. My decisions had always seemed to provoke doubt and concern. Growing up, it was like a subconscious game I played, growing my hair longer and longer, waiting for the right time to make the leap into something more daring. I had always been Victoria, the girl with long hair, the one who received compliments and muttered envy from those around me. Yet, deep down, it was a prison, acting as a reminder of my hesitations and insecurities.

I had decided that this year would be different. I was determined to cut my hair, to shed the past like an old skin. Yet the hesitation clung to me like an unwanted shadow whenever I thought about stepping into a salon.

Before I left my hometown, I had entered a trendy salon with the hopes of leaving with a completely fresh look. Instead, the condescending stylists greeted me with gentle smiles and polite refusals when I asked for something edgy. ‘Why not think it over?’ they suggested. ‘It’s a big change.’

But I had thought about it for years, causing me to scream in frustration, so I could not postpone my decision any longer.

Liberation

The university town had salons aplenty, each one appearing fancier than the last, its doors apparently closed to someone who looked like me. On my voyage of exploration, I had chosen to wear my favourite floral cotton minidress paired with my faithful worn denim jacket. I had chosen my outfit to reflect my personality, a heady blend of dainty and rebellious. Yet, as I wandered the streets, I realised I looked more like a lost lamb in search of a shepherd, with my knee-length hair flowing behind me as it skimmed the back of my legs.

I spent the morning wandering the town, hoping to discover a funky salon that would embrace the dark, edgy look I envisioned. Instead, the salons I stumbled into were upscale and polished, their stylists dripping with disdain as they surveyed me in my casual ensemble. They brushed me off with scorn and pity, hurrying back to their wealthy clients as they regarded me – a poor student in an unkempt dress with knee-length hair – as an eyesore. I should have expected as much, yet the rejection stung. I felt as if I were shouting silently for someone to hear me, for someone to give me a transformation that I desperately craved.

Wandering aimlessly, I eventually found myself in a quiet narrow lane, away from the vibrant centre of town. A gust of wind swept down the tunnel, tangling my loose hair around my face like a net. It was then that I heard a male voice call out from beyond, teasing yet playful, ‘Hey, Rapunzel, you look a little lost.’

Confrontation

My heart sank on hearing those mocking words, but I managed to respond politely. The repeated jibes about my Rapunzel-like appearance had worn me down over the years. ‘Just looking for a way back to the high street.’

‘It seems your time would be better spent looking for a way to get a haircut?’ the unseen man chortled.

Very funny, I thought, still trying to bring my wayward strands under a semblance of control. Ironical, perhaps, if he had known of my mission!

Once I had restrained all my hair, albeit temporarily, my vision cleared. I spied a burly man with a shining bald head, leaning against the doorway of a nondescript storefront. The sign above him, faded and peeling, read Barbered by Bryan.

Searching everywhere for a hairdressing salon and I accidentally discover a men’s barbershop. Irony seemed prevalent in this part of town although, unexpectedly, something about the place made my heart race.

‘So, do you want a haircut?’ he persisted, after breathing out a huge cloud of cigarette smoke.

‘No, thank you!’ I squeaked nervously, trying to sidestep the growing cloud of cigarette smoke wafting in my direction. But as I stepped away, I found myself hesitating.

‘Why not?’ he challenged, his voice gruff but not without a certain charm.

Irritation bubbled within me. ‘I am a girl,’ I patiently explained, adopting a modelling stance to display my floral minidress. ‘And this is a barbershop. For men!’ I protested. ‘I mean, you don’t cut women’s hair, do you?’

‘Doesn’t make any difference to me if you’re a girl,’ he shrugged. ‘Come inside. You desperately need a haircut,’ he added rudely, with no knowledge of my circumstances, even if – ironically! – he was spot on with his assertion.

‘No …’ I murmured, although my conviction was wavering a little. Refusing a haircut, even from a barber, felt like I was taking a step back from the change I craved. ‘No, I can’t.’

From almost anyone else, his words would have been music to my ears. Coming from the bald owner of a barbershop that had seen better times, I found it disconcerting and unsettling.

Taking a long drag on his cigarette, he gave a shrug to suggest that my decision did not bother him. He casually glanced up and down the lane as if looking for a more interesting way of spending his time.

Nervously, I tried to peer past his bulk and reconcile my insistent desire for change with the thought of being inside the shop with that man.

‘I’ll be closing soon,’ he warned, moving slightly to stub out his cigarette.

I glanced past him into the shop’s somewhat shabby, yet tidy, interior. A big, imposing black leather barber chair dominated the space and ominously awaited me if I should be crazy enough to venture inside.

Despite my apprehension, curiosity pushed my feet forward a few more steps. It was as if the universe was conspiring to guide me right where I needed to be.

‘Last chance, love,’ he said, stepping back inside his domain and easing the door closed.

‘Fine,’ I suddenly blurted out, forcing a sense of bravery.

Consultation

The door stopped moving and the barber peeped through the gap. ‘Fine?’ he questioned.

Conviction began to boil deep within me. ‘Please, Bryan, could you cut my hair?’

Looking astonished by my change of heart, a low chuckle escaped him as he reappraised me. He looked me up and down as if for the first time. ‘So, love, I don’t do fancy women’s styles,’ he warned. ‘I do men’s haircuts. Plain haircuts. Short haircuts,’ he cautioned in a manner designed to cause me to rethink my decision. ‘Very short.’

I gulped but I felt a glimmer of hope at the slight opening he offered. ‘I don’t want it fancy, Bryan,’ I declared, my voice firm. ‘But I do want it short.’

He raised an eyebrow but stepped aside, letting me enter his barbershop. Without waiting for his invitation, I braced myself and defiantly marched over to his oversized chair. I clambered into it, feeling tiny and helpless as he immediately pumped it up much higher than felt comfortable. A huge heavy cape suddenly enveloped me, and it weighed me down. I felt trapped and vulnerable, but alight with adrenaline.

‘Comfortable, love?’ he enquired.

‘Yes, thank you, Bryan,’ I replied timidly, not feeling comfortable at all. Furthermore, his frequent use of “love” when addressing me was making me feel on edge. ‘I am Victoria.’

He nodded, as he arranged my loose tresses evenly around my head. Half ended up trailing down the back of the chair, while the remainder framed each side of my face, with the ends gathering in my lap.

‘Nice name … Vicky,’ he acknowledged, nodding.

‘No. It’s Victoria,’ I snapped back, as I always had done when anyone tried to shorten my name. I had always thought that Victoria suited me better with my abundant hair, rather than its abbreviated form.

Momentarily, he looked taken aback by my spirited response, following my earlier tentativeness. Then he chuckled. ‘I guess Victoria does suit a Rapunzel better,’ he agreed, and I smiled … at the irony, or was it simply coincidence?

My smile faltered when he picked up a large comb and attempted to tug it through my windblown hair. He quickly grew frustrated, as I had so often been, when finding the inevitable painful tangles.

Sighing, he tossed the comb down onto a shelf below the mirror in front of me, and from a nearby hook he lifted a huge set of red hairclippers. They looked tiny in his large hands, as he tapped the shining blade against his empty palm as he studied me in the mirror.

‘Short, Victoria?’ he growled, his intonation demanding confirmation of what I had said earlier.

‘Yes, short,’ I stated with confidence, my resolve momentarily faltering when I fearfully added, ‘p… p… please …’

Implementation

‘No need to be nervous of me, Victoria,’ the barber, chuckled, clearly amused by my last-minute doubts. I blinked in the mirror. ‘But I would be very respectful of these beauties,’ he grinned, brandishing the hairclippers.

As the clippers roared to life, I blinked again, accepting the inevitability of what was to come. He placed the blade at a level above my shoulder and below my chin and then drove it confidently through my thick locks. My hair immediately surrendered to the powerful insistence of the blade, and huge swathes of my tresses began sliding down my shoulders, into my lap, and down to the floor, tumbling like a waterfall.

Without pausing, he adjusted the position of the blade and edged around my head at the same level, dispatching all my long hair to the ground. Eighteen years it had taken me to grow my hair to that extraordinary length, and eighteen seconds for him to get rid of it, as if it were nothing.

‘Bob,’ the barber stated flatly, describing the style, after silencing his hairclippers.

He had bobbed my hair below the level of my chin, in a style that was reminiscent of my mother. Despite how evenly he had cut my hair, its thickness made it fluff outwards, giving a very unflattering scarecrow-like appearance.

The sudden and brutal change in my appearance had shocked me. Furthermore, the resemblance to my mother appalled me. Indeed, I had actively avoided any similar style when planning to reinvent myself!

‘Tidy up the bob, Victoria, or go shorter?’ the barber demanded.

‘Shorter,’ I breathed, the word liberating. I did not want anyone mistaking me for my mother.

Modification

Without a word of discussion, the hairclippers roared back into life. The barber drove the blade into my hair above my right ear and thick clumps tumbled down over my shoulders, joining the long swathes previously severed.

Bryan continued to edge the clippers around my head at the same height. He removed all the hair below that line he had established at the back of my head, finishing at my left ear. He then moved in front of me. By continuing that same line across my forehead, he carved a blunt fringe above my eyebrows. All that remained of my long hair was a short glossy cap perched on my crown.

The barber then used the hairclippers to remove all the fine bristles from above my ears and along my neck until he had shaved it bare, leaving stark white skin. As Bryan made further precise adjustments to what remained of my hair, I suddenly realised that he had rendered me partially bald.

‘Bowlcut,’ he declared with a hint of pride. I noted that he had cut this second style with great care and exacting precision. I contemplated whether it was because he was on more familiar ground. As the style was not a “fancy woman’s style”, it was less of a departure from Bryan’s daily male-oriented work.

The bowlcut looked stark and severe but corresponded to the edginess I had been seeking for so long. ‘Cool,’ I murmured, with feeling.

‘Some mothers who enjoy asking me to inflict this style upon their sons, call it a mushroom cut,’ the barber explained, observing my reaction in the mirror.

With my reinvention, I did not wish people to view me as an obedient schoolboy, or someone whose hair had been cut with a bowl on her head. After a few moments of elation, I felt completely deflated.

I stared pointedly at the barber. ‘Shorter,’ I demanded, feeling a surge of empowerment.

Continuation

With a shrug, the barber took charge once again. He used the hairclippers, with a plastic guard attached, to rapidly obliterate the bowlcut that he had so diligently crafted. In a blur, he moved the clippers back and forth, and from side to side. Within seconds he had mown all my remaining hair down to just a couple of centimetres, sprouting vertically from the top of my head.

With clippers and comb, he squared off my bristly mop, giving it a precise brush-like appearance with each hair standing smartly to attention. He carefully faded the edges of the brush to meet the bare skin on the back and sides of my head, and then checked and rechecked the style until completely satisfied.

‘Flattop,’ he declared, describing the unforgiving haircut worn by recruits to the military.

It was an uncompromising look that seemed to exaggerate the size of my ears sticking out from the shaved sides of my head. Not embarrassingly large, perhaps, but certainly noteworthy.

My proud and defiant hairstyle proclaimed that I had just been brutally Barbered by Bryan. The dazzling whiteness of my newly exposed skin provided unmistakable confirmation.

My flattop was stark and severe but, as with the bowlcut, demonstrated the uncompromising wild edge for which I had yearned for so long.

‘Cool,’ I murmured, once again, experiencing a heady mix of excitement and disbelief.

‘Shorter?’ the barber asked, his eyes glinting with mischief, brandishing the hairclippers above my forehead.

‘No thanks, Bryan,’ I replied, grinning at my new identity reflected in the mirror.

But as he placed the clippers on my forehead, curiosity struck. ‘What would be shorter?’

Culmination

The barber leaned in, his voice deep and smooth, ‘Bald!’ he stated. ‘I can clipper it all off, lather up your head, shave it completely smooth, then polish it until your scalp gleams like mine.’

I gasped at his deeply emotive description. A jolt of excitement coursed through my whole body at the wild thought.

‘You have the perfect head shape for it, Victoria,’ Bryan persisted. ‘It would emphasise that graceful, swan-like curve to your neck even more.’

The idea of shedding everything in one fell swoop flashed vividly in my mind. I took a moment to compose myself while the barber slowly closed the distance between the hairclippers and my forehead.

I gave a long sigh. ‘Maybe next time, Bryan,’ I replied, a tinge of regret mingling with exhilaration.

He gave a nod of understanding, whisking away the cape and lowering the chair. I looked down to see huge mounds of my former hair encircling the chair. Any regret was immediately overshadowed by the elation I was feeling, having finally accomplished something I had desired for so long.

Epilogue

As I followed Bryan to the pay desk, I kept stealing glances in any mirror that reflected my newly created identity. He charged me a ridiculously small sum for my three haircuts when compared with the salons I had consulted earlier. Observing his price list on the wall, I saw he had kindly charged me for just one haircut despite the extended time I had been in his shop. He truly deserved the modest tip I pressed in his palm.

‘You will need to pop back every week or two, Victoria, to keep it looking fresh,’ Bryan explained.

‘Cool!’ I acknowledged, giggling. ‘You’ll be seeing me at least once a week for the next three years while I’m at the university.’

He opened the door, and I stepped back outside. The chill wind kissed my neck, and as I walked down the narrow lane, I felt invincible. Having forged my new identity, I was no longer Victoria, a timid girl defined by others’ expectations.

I had become Tori, wild and undaunted, ready to embrace this new chapter in my life on my own terms.

The End

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