"I wanted to do something different with my life," says Tommy J, his knuckles and hands covered in tattoos.
The barber from the mid-north coast of New South Wales runs Guys and Dolls by Tommy J in Redfern.
He cuts anyone’s hair, but he only does one type of haircut – his signature version of the classic short back and sides.
"It's very nice, very sharp," he laughs. "You can open yourself up to the world by just a simple snip of the scissors."
Tommy knew early on that he wanted to cut people's hair, dropping out of school at 16 to pursue his passion.
"Coming from a country town, there were a lot of people being a brickie, being a mechanic," he says. "So I copped a lot of flak when I said I wanted to go and be a hairdresser."
"As a teenage boy I thought it was the smartest thing ever. They're all teasing me and giving me flack over it and two weeks in they're all like 'so what's her number?'"
"I'm like, you guys can go f@#$ yourself."
Produced by Andy Park.
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