Pirri Brothers - Renaissance in Greenwich

“It’s all about the soul. All about the soul, “he repeats many times, in everything I did, everything I do.”

THE TIP OF THE BOOT

Indeed.

The personal and professional life of Piero Pirri is all about the soul. Made of it. Built on it.

It all started, if one knows their geography of Italy well enough, on the tip of the boot! In a small town called Cosenza, in the Calabria region. Calabria, nestled between mountains and seas, claims the purest air in the world, according to Pirri, and its countryside... “Mamma Mia”, he exclaims,” the countryside! It is simply magnificent!”

Beautiful, Calabria, but poor, so poor, especially after the Second World War, when most of Europe, save some lucky areas, are ravaged by the follies of men. Eugenio Pirri, Piero’s father, has no choice but to leave his country, his family, to put food on the table. He finds work as a mason in the American military bases that proliferated like mushrooms in vanquished Germany. From the mid-1960s to the end of the 1970s, he spent entire years around bases in Stuttgart and Munich, seeing his wife, Maria, and two sons, Piero and Luigi only a few times a year.

Piero reflects on his quasi-fatherless childhood with wisdom rather than sorrow, a rare occurrence nowadays:

“Of course, we missed him, but we understood it was his duty !!”

There is no trace of hidden anguish or resentment in his voice. He means it.

What stands out clearly too is that Eugenio Pirri, as the mason he was, shaped his sons’ fundamental and lasting values.

“My father always said “Lavoro, Lavoro !!!” Work, Work”, he translates. "For him, Discipline and hard work were essential! And respect of the elders”

Note to the reader: Pirri, when especially passionate about something, often switches without noticing to his native Italian. The listener doesn’t tell him, amused by the slip and charmed by the language.

“My father was my first mentor,” concludes Piero Pirri.

Luigi Pirri, 53, joins the conversation. He was the first to test the waters in hairdressing, becoming an apprentice barber at 12 – 13 years old. He concurs with the eldest.

“Our father was a big influence on our work ethics. He taught us to be responsible, to work our butts off!!! He turns to his brother “Lavoro, Lavoro !!!” ... They chuckle lightly at the remembrance.

“And humility,” adds Luigi afterwards in a sober voice, humility. Too easily forgotten, that one, in our era.”

ATLANTIC CROSSINGS

Piero Pirri, unlike his younger brother, who knew almost immediately his life calling -cutting with gusto his family’s hair at 10 years old – flirted with other ambitions. The memory of his father in the US Army uniform most certainly preyed upon his imagination... The swarthy skin contrasting with the lightness of the khaki, the fitted cut decupling his shoulders, refining his silhouette... all this, those images, floated in a kaleidoscope in his adolescent head that led him only one way: he would be an officer, and since he loved the sea, he joins the Navy! He sent a few applications, changed his mind, saw himself as a policeman, like one of his uncles, started the registration process...

Meanwhile, like a river flows through and around the rocks it encounters, life in picturesque Calabria went on, composed of outings with friends, museum haunting, motorbike rides, and “famiglia” family, with his mother, Maria at its heart, warming the table with succulent pasta dishes and watching over their well-being like a hawk.

“Maria, her name is Maria- Pirri's voice has gained two octaves- can you imagine? Come la Madonna! La Madonna! La Madonna.”

Like the Virgin Mary.

Speaking his mother’s name, the ardent Pirri, lovingly, tenderly, catches on fire.

One day, one quiet day in 1987 that never presaged anything else than routine for the Pirri family, a bombshell lands on the doorstep of the Cosenza household. Suddenly, the door to America is opened wide in front of them, thanks to the offer of financial support from Piero’s grandfather on his mother’s side. They all go...but Piero...

Reluctant at first to leave a country he so loves, he finally succumbs to the siren songs of the New World three months later, joins his family in Greenwich, Connecticut, only to have to cross the Atlantic again-Eastward this time-almost immediately!

Indeed, Piero, rapidly faced with the difficulty of finding interesting and well-paid work on their new shores, his family suggest... hairdressing!

He accepts on one condition: he will study with the best in the world! Piero Pirri has in himself, like all perfectionists, the ability to transform into an arrow aimed dead on target, and this target, is the London of Vidal Sassoon, Tony&Guy, Trevor Sorbie, etc.

During his 18 months in the Mecca of hairstyling, he developed the art of cutting, chisel cut by chisel nick, under the guidance of such mentors as Damien Peers and Danielle Harvey. In London, Pirri came to see hairstyling, or the art of cutting, as the carving of a sculpture, based on the subtle creation of angles, all resulting in a shape that should be just as pleasing to the eye from near or far.

“A mistake in hairstyling, is to neglect to consider all the points of views: near, far, mid-distance... And the angles, the angles!!!

His hands rise to the sky, agitated.

“They are crucial!!! You are sculpting, remember? One section after the other! Stai creando arte ! (You are creating art)

Once again, Pirri's passion brought him back to his native land of Italy.

A country from which he has always drawn his main inspiration...

“Italy is an Open Museum”, he declaims, flames of pride in the eyes, “From Nature to Art!”

Rinascimento, the Renaissance period, is his favorite, with its plethora of Immortals: Da Vinci, MichelAngelo, Rafael.

“I love art. Art gives you an idea, a theme. A passion! And then passion creates forms!

Luigi Pirri, lover of his Italy too, expresses his love more calmly. He is the more reserved, but no less passionate, of the two brothers:

“The architecture, the outdoors, just walking in the streets and looking at the fashion on people; really, everything in Calabria inspires me!”

Back to the timeline: circa 1990, after London, his head full of ideas and his hands trained, polished and tweaked by the best, Piero joins Luigi in NYC. For two years, the duo will work in elite salons, notably Vincent Nardi’s. Nardi will become, in a pantheon of golden hands, the most important of Piero Pirri's mentors.

Then, in 1992, comes the big leap: the Pirri brothers decide to open their own salon in Greenwich, Connecticut, close to their parents: La famiglia.... But if the choice of site was easy, the financing is not! Their father, finally, comes to the rescue, lending them the quasi- totality of his life savings: money amassed painfully, by the sweat of his brow, during decades of frugality and double shifts, arriving from one job to leave for another...

Piero Pirri's eyes blur with tears, his voice breaks, evoking his father and the gift that allowed him and his brother to realize their dream.

“He sacrificed his life for us to have a better one. I wanted to make him proud until the end. We took great care of his money and ...and...”

He can talk no longer. His dampened cheeks say it all.

His younger brother also remembers how the desire not to disappoint his father made him redouble his efforts:

“Knowing how he earned the money, we felt we had an obligation to succeed. I didn’t want to let him down!”

Both agree that the patriarch, though confident in his offspring, kept a watchful eye on their business and, waving his fingers in the air from time to time, he reminded them to “Lavaro, Lavaro.. !!!”

Eugenio Pirri, a man of few words, according to his sons, but whose dark eyes said it all. He belonged to the “immense cohort of the humble who, since the dawn of time, provide the essential” *and was certainly a father proud of his sons when he passed away, in 2017.

For by then and still, the salon inaugurated at the dawn of the 90's has sailed from success to success, even requiring the opening of a second branch in 2003 to meet growing demand. The Pirri brothers have thus, for 10 years, simultaneously managed two establishments 45 minutes away from each other, keeping a high-speed operational rhythm that eventually became infernal. Wisely, they chose to refocus on only one salon, the initial location.

“We want to be able to give a very personalized service, and with all this commute, it was becoming difficult, “explains Piero Pirri.

The younger Pirri adds that clients' feelings are paramount at the salon: “Hopefully, we make them feel a little bit like family and....we make them love Italy!” He emphasizes “Italy” and his smile, always present but tentatively, now becomes entrenched.

This family atmosphere and these hints of the boot helped to attract their new recruit, Master Colorist Tommy Cole, 55, who joined the duo last year. Coming from a clan of hairdressers-his whole family wield scissors and combs with brio, Cole only had to open the door of the salon and take his first espresso (from a “real” coffee machine, like in Italy, obviously!), to be conquered.

“I loved the energy, “says the calm man, with conviction. The clients are great, the culture of the salon is fantastic, no one is pretentious. We are like a family. “This word again, famiglia...

Then comes the almost inevitable link ...

“And you know the best part? Totally by chance, I’m from Calabria too! My real name is Tommaso Gallo!"

APOGEE: FINALIST AT NORTH AMERICAN HAIRSTYLE AWARD (NAHA)

Alone once more in the salon, Pirri the eldest continues the visit. He stops in front of the striking photo of a young woman's bust. On a background of blues, from soft to dark and blending into each other, springs a bare neck, a square jaw line, a hard and clear oblique forehead: the famous angles. At the top of the head sits the parure: like the mane of a beast, but tamed, a half-moon of fine, silvery curls, emerge from a black vice, softening the firm lines of the face.

“Ah, I love this picture,” he says with visible pride. “It earned me a spot as a finalist at the NAHA (North American Hairstylist Awards) in 2018. “

He is told that the picture makes one’s thoughts skip through the centuries, into the past, the glow of candlelight on wooden panels and handmade curtains, to.... the Renaissance.

Pirri smiles, happy to be discovered.

“Yes! The inspiration for this picture is the Renaissance and ......also, tribal influences! “

Piero Pirri loves, in hairstyles, in art, in life, a good paradox.

The visit draws to a close and he has saved, he assures, the best for last.

His feline strides still crisp and supple, he walks towards the facade of the living room overlooking the street: an almost entire wall of large rectangular windows. Then, his body brushing against the glass, he directs the eye of his camera to show the view. Silently.

Admittedly, the park on the other side of the street, sated with its most beautiful summer finery, caresses the eyes with its greens softened by July and its peaking sun. The buildings all around, in their lines and colors, respond tastefully to the precepts of colonial architecture promised in all descriptions of Greenwich. And what about the neighbors! Luxury, refinement, discreet charm...Tiffany on the right...Saks Fifth Avenue on the left...One imagines a sidewalk full of “élégantes” going to Pirri’s salon after shopping...

The best? Completely plausible. But Piero Pirri does not react to the comments, remains walled in silence. It is then, by scrutinizing the view again, that we see her.

In fact, once noticed, we only see her and only her.

A church in the verdant park, whose dome stands out against the blue July sky, and a cross, emerging beyond, well beyond the horizon of the neighboring roofs.

A single white cross, alone in the blue sky.

Finally, Pirri comes to life, his eyes once again shooting black arrows of unleashed passion.

“It’s all because of the Church! All because of her!”, he confirms. “I’m so glad you noticed. It was a space that noboby wanted to rent for some reason. But when my brother and I visited and saw the view with the Church, that was it. I knew it was our place. Done deal. We signed.“

Still. A raised eyebrow and a perplexed look invite him to elaborate.

His features then mold themselves on his bones, in an expression never before seen: solemn, sacred. Slowly, his hand picks up something under his shirt. It catches an object. What it pulls out is a chain, with a cross at the end.

Piero Pirri, head bent, palm open, offers his cross of Jesus Christ to one’s gaze with humility and reverence.

“È tutta una questione di anima”

“It’s all about the soul.”

For one last time, Piero Pirri has slipped into Italian, into his true self, into his soul.

 

*W.H.Auden