Thom Priano & Garren
“There weren’t male hairdressers when I started—only barbers,” explains groomer Thom Priano. He and his longtime partner, Garren, entered the New York fashion scene in the mid-’70s, eventually styling shows for Valentino and Dolce & Gabbana as a two-man hair team. “You used to cut models into these very traditional looks, and every man looked the same,” says Priano. “But we found a beauty in men that wasn’t there.” Infusing men’s hairstyling with a degree of expressiveness is today much more common than in the era of Brylcreem homogeneity. But Garren and Priano—with 38 years and countless campaigns and collaborations with the likes of Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, and Steven Meisel between them—are still the gold standard. Working with Garren’s New York agency, Priano has finessed the blown-out coif and precision-cut bangs of Zac Efron, tousled Robert Pattinson’s ethereally mussed mane, and worked on Alexander Skarsgård’s clean, vintage cut. “We take the time to educate men,” says Priano. “Men’s hair isn’t as glamorous as women’s. But it’s been growing over the years.”
