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didn’t want to leave,” recalls Tom. “They’d
stay for drinks, have a cigar, and chat. It
was standing room only on weekends.”
They also found that some customers were
actually flying in from Saigon, desperate to
get a decent haircut from barbers personally
trained by Tom and Guido’s favorite barber
brought over from the Netherlands.
The Saigon location opened in early
2018 as a more fleshed out version of
the House of Barbaard, complete with a
gorgeous ground floor lounge done up in
tufted leather sofas, dark wood, and vintage
lighting. Its distinguished Man Cave feel
makes it the perfect place to sip on a scotch
or smoke a Cuban after your haircut, while
also hosting weekly live music events and
other social events.
With the Saigon version of House of
Barbaard now more than a year old, the
duo have turned their creative energy back
to their first love, launching their clothing
line this past May with five gorgeous ready-
to-wear dress shirts and a whimsical
collection of dress socks. “We wanted
to make a line of stylish dress
shirts available to everyone.
We found that in Vietnam,
it was either shirts for the
bottom-end market or
super-expensive, imported
shirts, and nothing in
between.” The House of
Barbaard aesthetic is for
“gentlemen with attitude”,
sharp dressers who
buck convention while
remaining tastefully classy.
There’s an expression
that “God is in the details”,
and if that’s true, you’ll find
only believers clad in House
of Barbaard. Made from
fine Italian or Indian fabrics,
Barbaard shirts incorporate a
myriad of sumptuous details,
all cleverly designed to be
revealed only as much as
the wearer wants to show.
The buttoned side gussets
are a throwback to when
gentlemen wore sock
suspenders while the ornate
embroidered logo is only seen
when unbuttoning the second
button. “Sometimes, you just
don’t want to see a logo on the
chest pocket and the placement of
our logo encourages people to loosen
up a bit,” explains Tom.
Look closely and you’ll see that the
all-important second button, known as
the “Barbaard button”, is also patterned
to match a specific pair of Barbaard socks
in eye-catching shades with Art Deco or
Victorian motifs. “Gone are the days when
a man’s socks are supposed to match his
trousers,” says Tom. “You can be neat and
sharp but still play around with your socks.”
He advises clients to have a whiskey in the
lounge while the customizable button is
sewn on to match the accompanying pair of
socks.
The five styles currently available reflect
a wide range of aesthetics. The Cheeky