In 1994, American Crew founder David Raccuglia started a revolution in men's grooming when he walked into a distributor's office in Chicago and asked them for $25,000 to produce the first batch of American Crew shampoo. At the time, David sensed there was an important movement underway in men's grooming. These days, there are dozens of product lines marketed specifically to men, but I feel it was American Crew that kicked the movement into high gear.

Today, American Crew is likely the most popular men's salon brand in the world.
In our industry, David Raccuglia is a star. He and the company he founded are continually blazing new ground and helping barbers and stylists take their service to a new level. It was my pleasure recently to have the opportunity to sit down with David and pick his brain about his product line and our industry.

Dave Alexander: David, I've been using your products in our stores since the beginning and I'm continually excited about American Crew products and imaging. Tell me what inspired you to start American Crew?

David Raccuglia: I became a hairdresser in 1977 and I actually started my career by going to barber school. After barber school, I immediately went to beauty school and kind of abandoned the whole men's side of the industry. At that time, in the early 80's hair was very unisex and androgynous. All of what I learned in the classic barbering arena was dead, so for many years I spent time doing men's hair which was basically longer than women's hair at that time.

As you remember in the early 80s, hair was so aggressively short on women and it was longer on men.

So, I ended up moving to Chicago to open a male salon and I started to see men changing. There was sort of a return to classic grooming and clothing. Armani became very popular with vintage looks and I started to become very interested in classic barber styles, which most hairdressers couldn't do very well. Being that I had barber training, I was able to do a fade and taper. Even in the African-American community, a lot of the celebrities started wearing short hair and shaving their heads. At the time, there were really no men's products. I was doing a lot of styles where I was slicking hair back and found myself going to the department store to buy Brylcreem or pomade in order to get that look, so it inspired me to start a styling range that was exclusive for men. That started the quest for American Crew. Barbers and men's hair, at one time, probably made more money and were more influential with their clients than hairdressers were. Think about a guy in the 50s. He got his hair cut every two weeks, but all of the sudden men stopped coming on a regular basis. I started to see a shift back towards that -- my clients were coming in every three or four weeks to maintain that look, so it was a very inspiring time for me to jump into the men's arena again and go back to my roots as a barber. So I did.

DA: David, one of the things that attracted me to Crew initially was the incredible imaging your company uses, from the "beer bottle brown" bottles your shampoo is packaged in to the beautiful black and white photography you use in your marketing. Where do you find the inspiration for your company's packaging and imaging?

DR: It's interesting. I found an amber tonic bottle from the 40s. It was glass and it was from a hair tonic company out of Los Angeles. I don't remember the name of it, but that's where the inspiration came from for the amber bottles. It was sort of a classic apothecary look and I thought it was just so perfect for men. It has a medicinal, very serious look to it.

DA: I notice you actually do a American Crew's photography, which is quite stunning by the way. What was your motivation for taking on that task?

DR: I've always loved photography and I've always been attracted to the black and white imagery from the 40s, 50s, and 60s. I'm a self-taught photographer and I'm immersed in classic photographers like Robert Frank. I've always felt like black and white and men's grooming go hand in hand because at the time men's grooming was at its best, most of the images were black and white. So, there's a relationship for me back to the era of grooming and a black and white photo that makes a man feel comfortable. As a man, when you look at a photo in black and white, it feels pretty comfortable and I think it's easier for a man to relate to a man in black and white. I've always been a fan of photography, even since high school. I'm just lucky enough to have been in the position to hire myself for that job in our company. I'm glad people enjoy my imagery because I enjoy doing it very much.

DA: Switching gears a little bit now, I was on the American Crew website and notice you've completely revamped the site and added a section for salon professionals. What other things do you have in store for those of us who are behind the chair?

DR: The website is very new. It's just been launched and we plan on adding a lot of updates on education. We have a whole new revamped education program right now called the Menswork In-Salon Training Program. It's one of the most comprehensive men's education programs ever done -- over 35 hours of education, teaching 18 classic and contemporary male haircuts based on the Menswork Method, Crew's definitive technical approach to cutting men's hair. The stylist section of the website is going to keep updating; we'll be getting a dialog opened up between us and the stylists, there will be updated style galleries, step-by steps, trend cuts, and make-overs.