Michael Calabro performs a foil using plastic shells on customer Shannon Gormley at Calabro’s Hair Design in Pawtucket Tuesday.   Times photo/Butch Adams

By DONNA KENNY KIRWAN

PAWTUCKET — It’s been a long time since anyone asked for “the Fonda,” but the layered shag haircut actress Jane Fonda sported in the 1970s movie “Klute” helped put Calabro’s Hair Design on the map.

That, and the fact that hairstylist/owner Tom Calabro was on the scissor’s edge of a new trend in 1971 when he opened Calabro’s Unisex Haircutters on Division Street.
“We were one of the first ‘unisex’ hair salons in the state,” Calabro said. “There was one in Cranston, one in Providence and us. Before that, you ran either a barber shop or a beauty parlor. We were among the first to be able to offer hair cutting to both men and women in the same location.”
The state’s licensing procedures were not yet in step with the new concept. Calabro said that in his early days, he had to obtain both a barber shop license and a beauty salon license. He was also required to install partitions separating the “men’s” side from the “women’s” side. “You couldn’t have men and women in the same shop back then,” he noted.
The public showed, however, that it was ready for the walls to come down: Calabro’s was an immediate hit. “We used to have people lined up on the sidewalk, waiting for us to open,” Calabro said proudly.
He recalled that he had to do some searching back then to even find stylists who were schooled in the unisex haircutting technique, finally recruiting one man from New Haven, Conn., and another from Stoughton, Mass.
The Calabro name has long been associated with haircutting in Pawtucket. Tom’s father, Frank, ran a hair salon during the 1930s in the Peerless building and, upon returning from World War II, opened a barber shop on another stretch of Division Street.
His grandfather, Mike, had cut hair in a barber shop at Coney Island, New York, and later ran Mike’s Barber Shop on Pawtucket Avenue.
Tom Calabro spent about nine years cutting hair in his father’s barber shop, but became fascinated by various trends in hairstyling emerging from the bigger cities. After seeing celebrated New York hairstylist Paul McGregor at a hair show, Calabro asked to visit him at his Greenwich Village salon.
 “That’s where I learned about hair, from Paul McGregor and also Paul Mitchell, who had a salon on 57th Street in New York City,” Calabro said. “McGregor did Jane Fonda’s hair for ‘Klute’ and we started doing the haircut back here.”
The look started to gain notice in the city’s hot nightclubs of the day, The Edge and January’s, and word traveled about Calabro’s. The salon’s reputation also spread to the music industry, bringing in Carlos Santana,  members of the band Styxx and other visiting celebrities
 “We even started to get people coming down from Boston,” recalled Tom. “It always made me feel great that I did what I did in Pawtucket.”
After 18 years on Division Street, Calabro’s Unisex Salon moved to a plaza on Armistice Boulevard for about six years, and then opened as Calabro’s Hair Design in its present location at 1571 Newport Ave., in 1998.
Tom’s son, Michael, is continuing the family business; the elder  Calabro recently turned over the reins of ownership. He said, however, that he has no plans to retire just yet, and maintains an active role in the salon.
For many years, hockey was Michael Calabro’s passion. He even spent a stint as a semi-pro hockey player in Minnesota.
However, growing up around the salon, he said  he always thought about following in his father’s footsteps. “It was almost a lifestyle for us. People from the industry would come over to the house — -my father always had a great group of people around him,” said Michael. “I saw the positive side of the industry, and I thought it was awesome.”
Besides the father and son styling team, Tom Calabro’s wife, Marie, is the receptionist, and the couple’s daughter-in-law, Eliesha, is the nail technician. Daughter Linda is also a hair stylist. She worked for several years at the Armistice Boulevard salon before leaving to raise a family.
Just as Tom Calabro established himself with haircutting techniques, Michael Calabro is known for his mastery with hair coloring. His artful techniques earned him Rhode Island Monthly’s “Best of Rhode Island” award for hair coloring in 2006.
Over three decades, Calabro’s has seen the changes, as “the Fonda” made way for “the Dorothy Hamill,” then “the Farrah Fawcett” and much later, “the Jennifer Aniston.” There were also the cycles of the perms (for men and women), then the straight look and razor cuts. To keep up with the styles, the two Calabros and the rest of the staff attend hair shows and demonstrations offered by visiting stylists.
The hottest celebrity haircut being requested today? The “Victoria Beckham” with its “piecey” look of a long layered “bob” in the front and a shorter cut in the back, according to Michael Calabro. In a complete turn-around, he predicts the return of “the shag” that started it all. “It will be about the only way people can go after all these bobs,” he noted, with a smile.