Charlie
Lopez

It started with the chair.

I’ve been a barber for most of my adult life, but I’ve never looked at barbering as just cutting hair.

For me, the barbershop has always been a place where people connect, ideas get exchanged and something gets built.

In 2008, I opened Urban Stylez.

What started as a barbershop became something much bigger over the years. Different locations. Different neighborhoods. Generations of barbers coming through the doors. Thousands of people sitting in our chairs.

Through all of it, I stayed connected to the chair.

From barber to builder.

As Urban Stylez grew, my role changed.

I wasn’t only cutting hair anymore. I was building shops, creating opportunities for other barbers, designing spaces, solving problems and thinking about what the barbershop could become.

But growth has a way of bringing you back to the beginning.

After years of building outward, I started wanting to work with my hands again.

Another craft found me.

At first glance, barbering and hatmaking might seem like two completely different worlds.

To me, they aren’t.

Both start with a person. Both require understanding shape, proportion and style. Both are old trades passed from one set of hands to another.

And both can completely change the way someone carries themselves when they walk out the door.

So I began learning another craft — blocking, shaping, burning, stitching, experimenting with materials and building hats individually by hand.

Not because I wanted another product to sell.

I wanted another way to create.

A place where ideas take shape.

Eventually, I wanted a place where all of those worlds could exist together.

So I created my private atelier in Orlando.

One barber chair. Hatmaking tools. Old photographs. Vintage pieces. Ideas everywhere.

This is my one-chair barbershop, but the chair is only part of what happens here. It’s where I cut, create, think, build and connect with my people.

Some days I’m behind the chair. Some days I’m shaping a hat. Other days I’m sitting there figuring out the next move, building a system, mentoring a barber or developing an idea that may not make sense to anybody else yet.

Florida’s Vintage Barbershops.

Urban Stylez grew beyond the original shop, but I never wanted growth to erase where we came from.

The old neighborhood barbershop meant something.

People knew each other. Conversations happened. Young barbers learned from older barbers. People walked in without knowing exactly who would cut them and eventually found the barber they stayed with for years.

That is the spirit I want Urban Stylez to carry forward.

Not recreating the past.

Keeping the best parts of it alive.

Building something that means something.

At this point in my life, I’m less interested in proving how much I can build.

I’m more interested in making sure what I build means something.

That means continuing to cut hair. Making hats by hand. Building Urban Stylez. Creating opportunities for the next generation of barbers. And documenting the history and culture that shaped me along the way.