BARBERLAND PRAGUE & ANTICA BARBIERIA COLLA
A parallel across space and time
Why the combination of BL and ABC ? David discovered ABC quite accidentally when he bought their perfume in another barbershop in Milan. After his first visit to ABC, it was clear where BL was going next. He found the same vision and a similar concept. David was so impressed by this 120-year-old barber’s paradise that he decided to arrange training for his team of barbers here, while using the brand’s luxury cosmetics at BL. This is how this more than a century long Italian tradition was brought to the heart of Prague, to BarberLand.
AN INSTITUTION IN MILAN SINCE 1904
OVER ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF EXPERIENCE IN BEARD AND HAIR CARE
Antica Barbieria Colla was opened in the very heart of Milan in 1904 by Dino Colla, a barber from the town of Ferrara.
He never served customers himself, but rather trained his staff to guarantee they could provide a highly refined service. After a few years since its opening, due to its great success, Antica Barbieria Colla started to be considered as a sort of gentlemen’s club, in the manner of the British ones.
When the salon success was established, Dino Colla started looking for a bigger location and in 1919 moved to via Verdi 2, at the corner with via Manzoni, facing the theatre La Scala.
In its new venue Antica Barbieria Colla experienced its greatest glory and acclaim. It was regarded just like an institution, given that all institutions were served here. Colla’s success lasted until August 1943 when a dreadful bombing razed Piazza Scala and the surrounding area to the ground, causing the shop to close for nine months. Antica Barbieria Colla reopened on April 1 1944 in via Gerolamo Morone 3 (its current location).
Among its many employees, only one, Guido Mantovanini, loyally waited for the reopening. His devotion was duly repaid by making him the sole heir of the business upon Dino Colla death in February 1949.
On January 16 1960, Franco Bompieri joined Antica Barbieria Colla fresh from his experience at the Hotel Continentale; a sincere and passionate partnership started and the shop was thriving even more thanks to the clientele brought forward by Franco Bompieri.
He and Guido Mantovanini became shareholders at 50% each in 1965 and for thirteen years they earnestly worked together until Guido Mantovanini grew ill in 1973; hence, two years later, in 1975, Franco Bompieri became the sole shareholder of a shop which was already greatly acclaimed in Milan.
FRANCESCO BOMPIERI, BETTER KNOWN AS FRANCO
KEEPER OF THE ANCIENT ART OF BEARD CARE, HE LED THE SHOP FROM THE MID-SEVENTIES INTO THE NEW MILLENIUM
Franco Bompieri has been the last barber to own Antica Barbieria Colla and he has always claimed to be interested in two things only: hair cutting and writing.
Born in Volta Mantovana in 1934, a barber since the age of nine, Franco arrived in Milan in 1949, right after the end of World War II. As Italy and Milan were rebuilding their own identity, thanks to his job Franco had the chance to get to know and serve men from different walks of life: the street cleaners of his first employment in the Lambrate area, the bicycle thieves of the shop in via Marco D’Oggiono, the gentlemen from the Hotel Continentale and eventually the well-known clients of its own salon, Antica Barbieria Colla, where quite often art and literature were subject matter for discussion. Many eminent Italian personalities have been attending the shop, such as Cesare Romiti, Giulio Malgara, the Tronchetti brothers, Enrico Cuccia, Luchino Visconti and Enzo Jannacci.
In his spare time, usually overnight, Franco was also a writer.
Franco and thus Antica Barbieria Colla reflects a city that does not exist anymore: the same place where the sweepers of the movie Miracle in Milan or the pickpockets and the immigrants of Rocco and His Brothers lived, and also the elegant city where Luchino Visconti spent his life. He is a “craftsman of elegance”, who experienced hunger, but also attended La Scala theatre, met street cleaners and princes, thieves and important bankers.
