Ivan

I'm Ivan. I'm 30 years old, and I've been a barber here at District for going on six years. I was born in California and moved here when I was 10, so I'm technically kind of a Texas native now. I was raised in Crowley, lived in Fort Worth for a while, and got to experience a lot of different food out here and a lot of bars and places to go. I've had a lot of people sit in my chair — some from out of town, some who've lived here their whole life — who don't even know certain places I tell them about. So I really enjoy breaking down some of Fort Worth and the stuff I've experienced around here that a lot of people haven't gotten to venture out to.

I feel like I'm pretty versatile when it comes to personalities. Whatever the client wants to talk about, I'm down for it. Anything that happened in their life, man, I'm open to talk about it, and I enjoy doing that while giving them a great haircut at the same time. It's a beautiful thing when you can mesh both of those together, get on the same page, and build that relationship between client and barber — getting to know them for what they do outside of here, getting to know their family and what they have going on. I feel like it's a great thing.

I have families that I cut. There's a gentleman right now — I think I started off cutting his firstborn, and now he has four kids, so I'm cutting the whole family. It's awesome. It's cool to have people come in over the years and build that relationship to where they have their first child, and a couple years later they bring them in for their first haircut with me. I feel like it's an honor to cut them for the first time and watch them grow.

When I started barbering, I didn't know what it could truly come with. I worked a couple jobs here and there after I graduated high school and never really thought about cutting hair. My mom's been a hairstylist for 15-plus years, and I always worked summers at her hair salon, but I never really saw myself in that career. I ended up really enjoying it because I like detail-oriented work. And barbering has brought me opportunities I didn't know could come with this career — the freedom to take off and hang out with family, go on vacations with my wife. I've been really grateful for all of it.