The Bruin Barbershop

As many family-run businesses have vanished from Westwood
Village over the years, much of the Village’s charm may have
fled with them. But there are still a few places with both history
and character that alumni can revisit this weekend during
homecoming.

Oakley’s Hair Styling on Gayley Avenue is the oldest
business in Westwood. The hair shop was originally established in
the village in 1929 in the Dome building on Westwood Boulevard, and
was encouraged to do so because UCLA needed a barber shop.

But even before there was an Oakley’s cutting Bruin hair
in the Village, there was an Oakley’s barbershop across the
street from UCLA’s original campus on Vermont Avenue. The
Janss Investment Corporation, which made a fortune donating the new
land for UCLA and then developing what was sure to be a thriving
area surrounding it, offered 6 months free rent to Bert Oakley to
move from Vermont Avenue to Westwood.

Walking into Oakley’s is like walking back in time. Barber
polls, chrome barber chairs and a shoe shine booth are just some of
the trappings of the past visible there.

Being somewhat of a museum, the shop has a display case of
barbering relics of the past, including a box of
“singe” tapers, which barbers would use to burn off
wavy hair ends to give a smooth look to a haircut.

Larry Oakley, owner of Oakley’s and nephew of the late
Bert Oakley, the shop’s founder, said at the time, barbers
used to give 10 shaves to every haircut, and that most men used to
get their shoes shined and hands manicured.

“There were no slobs in those days,” Oakley said.
“Everyone dressed up.”

The case also has a set of medieval-looking metal instruments
used early in the century to dig boils out of customers’
backs. Oakley said that up until the 20th century, barber shops
functioned somewhat like medical offices, where customers would
even come in for an occasional blood letting ““ with
leeches.

But it is more than just old furniture that gives Oakley’s
character.

Back in the ’40s and ’50s, Hollywood movie stars
such as James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Bing Crosby got their
hair cut at Oakley’s. Larry Oakley was the personal barber of
Howard Hughs, inventor of the colossal aeronautical failure the
“Spruce Goose” and, at the time, one of the richest men
in the world.

“I thought he was a bum, really,” Oakley said,
remembering his first meeting with Hughs, who ran into the shop
wearing paint splattered clothes and asked for a haircut.

The Oakley family itself has a famous member: Annie Oakley, who,
in the late 19th century, was one of the greatest sharpshooters in
the world and was later associated with Buffalo Bill’s Wild
West Circus.

More recently, Pete Sampras has been getting haircuts at
Oakley’s.

Though barber shops used to be a common sight, they began to
disappear after what Oakley calls the “long hair thing”
of the ’60s. Oakley said that from 1964-1974, up to
two-thirds of the nation’s barber shops went out of business
when the short hair, clean-cut look went out of style.

“People ask me why I’m not retired, and I tell them
I’m not because I spent all my retirement money keeping this
place open,” Oakley said. “It was tough. … No one got
haircuts.”

But business began to pick up again with the booming ’80s
economy. Oakley remembers the Village being filled “wall to
wall” with people on the weeknights.

However, styling trends changed once again when men began going
to hair-styling salons, which siphoned off many barbershop
customers. It was at this time that Oakley’s Barbershop was
re-christened Oakley’s Hairstyling.

Oakley also remembers the hard times of the late ’80s and
early ’90s, when the ballooning economy burst and Westwood
was virtually empty for a couple years. Long-established businesses
left in droves.

Clinton Shudy, a hairstylist at Oakley’s, said part of
what keeps clients coming to Oakley’s is its relaxed,
family-like atmosphere.

“You walk in, and it’s visually more laid back.
It’s not so white, starchy and modern,” Shudy said.