Today we’d like to introduce you to Luis Prieto.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My family & I immigrated to the United States 16 years ago looking for a better life & new opportunities. I was only 14 & I didn’t speak English, which brought a lot of challenges. My parents had very little money and we had to move around a lot living in other people’s houses until they were able to find a job that would pay them enough to afford a place to live on our own. I remember my older brother living with us in a single apartment would come home from work on the weekend & start getting ready to go out. He would shave his head with some cheap clippers. That was the moment when I realized that we didn’t have money to afford to get a haircut as often as most people do. So one day, I picked up my brother’s clippers and started cutting my own hair with no experience. Some of my friends in Middle School made fun of me, but I continued cutting my own hair. As time passed by, I was getting better at cutting my own hair, but I was limited since the clippers I used were very low quality. Once I started going to high school, looking at other kids’ haircuts caught my attention. Their haircuts were very detailed & had “tapers’ & “fades.” I finally asked one of them & told me to go to the barbershop. That was the second time I went to a barbershop in my whole life. First time, I was probably about seven years old back in Mexico. This time, it was here in Los Angeles, & I fell in love with the artistic process of cutting hair. I tried to imitate the way barbers at the shop cut hair, but my haircuts would never come out the same. Eventually, I started to cut my friend’s hair & other people from school. When graduation time came, I was offered to work at the barbershop where most of my friends got their haircut at & I took the opportunity.
Along the way, I got a little discouraged by not having the proper paperwork to practice barbering & I left the barbershop to go back to school. I received my high school diploma through adult school & went to college while I was cutting hair from home, all at the same time. I really didn’t have a plan in place, but I was doing what I thought it was best at the moment. I got a scholarship for a program at Antioch University Los Angeles where I met the people that changed my life forever. The faculty at Antioch & my whole class still influence the decisions I’m able to make today. I will forever be thankful to my professors David Tripp & Katherine Pope. Once I finished the program, I obtained the proper documentation that I was missing to start barber school, & I continued my formal education through Santa Monica College at the same time. As I got older, I accumulated more responsibilities & I had to choose between continuing going to college & looking for a real job to pay for my tuition or quitting college, continuing barber school & cut hair to make a living. So I continued barber school & started to work at a barbershop under an apprenticeship program. The years kept passing by & I was working 6 to 7 days a week, 10 to 13 hours a day in order to build up clientele & finish my hours from barber school. When I finally got my barbers license after taking the state exam, I felt a big relief & I continued to work the same way I always did. Eleven years later, my wife encouraged me to open my own barbershop & I pulled the trigger without any major plan & very little money that I had saved up.
I had all the support from my wife, family, friends & customers. It was a whole new journey that let me to opening a barbershop, Visionz, in Culver City. I will say that things were not easy to start, but after a couple of months, things started to feel like my barbershop was becoming know and popular in the west side. It took me a while to realize how far I got & what I had accomplished. People always ask me how I came up with the name & there’s different reasons. the main reason why is because Visionz represents my vision individually, but it also represents my family, the vision we had coming to the United States looking for a new opportunity to have a better life. Visionz also represents the people working at my shop & the people that eventually will be part of my shop because everyone deserves the opportunities that I had. When the pandemic started back in February, I couldn’t realize how bad it was going to be for my industry. I had been in business 11 months when the state & city government announced the first Stay Home Order for all non-essential businesses & I didn’t know what to expect. It was a very stressful time full of anxiety & negative feelings. I waited almost two months for some type of help from the government and using money from my savings to sustain my barely one-year-old business. I was very disappointed with the programs that were created to help businesses because they were not created to help the small ones, the rules & regulations made it very difficult to qualify.
After almost three months, I was able to re-open for almost a month with cover guidelines until barbershops got shut down again. A week later, state & city officials announced that we were allowed to work outdoors only. Two days later, I decided to move my whole shop outside & with the help of my team, we made it work every day for nearly two months until we were able to go back inside. during the period of time, I brought along other barbers to work at my shop. I’ve been able to supply a good amount of customers for them, but it’s still not the same situation prior to the pandemic. Unfortunately, the first week of December, the state announced a second Stay Home Order for most non-essential businesses & we got shut down again. I feel very frustrated because every day has been a new challenge. My whole family depends on me, on my business & my ability to make this work. I try to keep a positive mindset because I believe that everyone is going through something during this pandemic & I know there could be someone in a worst situation. At the moment, I’m taking it one step at a time & playing by the rules because at the end of the day, playing by the rules is how I got this far.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
There has been many challenges along the way. Money has always been one of the biggest issues. My parents had to work two jobs at times in order to support me & my sister when we were younger. I had to choose between a college degree & barbering mainly because it was difficult to pay for my tuition & earn a living at the same time. Obtaining the proper documentation & gathering the money to open a business was another challenge. Today, the pandemic has been probably the biggest challenge in my life.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I believe that everyone deserves the best version of themselves. Most of the time as barbers & hairdressers, we fail to understand what people want when it comes to a haircut. For that reason, I put everything I know into understanding what the customer wants & I try to visualize it before getting it done. I look at my haircuts more like sculpting & creating an art piece. I love to work on challenging haircuts that include designs and the use of the straight razor. My customers always say that I pay much attention to detail. There’s a very important aspect that most barbers don’t implement in their work, which is the social interaction. I enjoy having a good conversation with my clients. It feels like therapy. The barbershop is the place where one can enjoy to talk about anything & enjoy a good haircut at the same time.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I was a very shy kid growing up. I feel like not being able to speak English properly during my first seven years in the US made it impossible for me to have normal conversations with people & to engage into daily activities. School was very difficult for the same reason. I had to read & write everything more than once. However, I was always passionate about whatever I was doing, anything from sports to working on a school project. If I didn’t know something, I would work on it until I figured it out. My interest has always been to be a better person, to improve myself & to help my family.
Pricing:
- $50 Haircut. It includes any type of haircut with scissor work & straight razor finish.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.visionzculvercity.com
- Instagram: @visionzculvercity
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/visionzculver/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/visionz-culver-city?uid=K04xzb7ePlrtIXOw4Nqd5Q&utm_campaign=www_business_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)
