They’ll Take the Travis Kelce — Hairdo, That Is

By Alyson Krueger, New York Times

Jeffrey Dugas, who cuts hair at Obsidian Barbers in New Brunswick, Canada, has received a very specific request from clients in the past few weeks: They want the same style as Travis Kelce.

“They usually come in with a picture of him,” Dugas said. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, I know who that is.’”

It’s not the first time Dugas has been asked to replicate the hairstyles of celebrities. “When Bryce Hall was popular on TikTok and had that long, curly fringe in the front, all the kids were getting it,” he said, referring to the social media personality with almost 25 million followers on TikTok.

Kelce’s hairstyle, a buzz cut fade, is easy to replicate. “It’s basically zero on the side until you get to the top,” he said. “It’s a fun, easy haircut that I can do in a quick 20 minutes.”

But the sheer number of customers asking for it astounds him. Last week he said he had “at least 50 people come in for that haircut,” he said. “That’s a crazy, crazy amount.” He attributes the demand to not only the fact that Kelce is dating Taylor Swift, but also because his brother, Jason Kelce, had a viral, shirtless moment at the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Buffalo Bills game.

Dugas is hardly the only barber getting these requests. Across the world, not just the country, men are replicating Kelce’s hairstyle, claiming it attracts positive attention from friends and love interests and gives them more confidence, though some also say it is hard to maintain — it needs to be re-buzzed every two to four weeks, according to Dugas — or too airy to keep warm during winter.

While barbers are excited their clients feel passionate about a particular style, some worry not everyone can actually pull this look off.

“Every canvas can’t take every type of hair,” said Nigel Miller, a barber at Fresh Avenue Grooming and Style in Birmingham, Alabama. “The Travis Kelce haircut looks good on more square-type head shapes and people with stronger jaws.”

It’s also a haircut that can really change someone’s look. “People who come in and get it, a lot of times they have long, straight hair, and it’s a drastic transformation,” Miller added. Fortunately, so far everyone he has given the cut to has liked it. “If they didn’t, they didn’t tell me to my face.”

Miller started getting requests for the look in September, when Swift first appeared at a Chiefs game. He predicted that more people will want it now that the Chiefs are going to the Super Bowl.

Those who have gotten Kelce’s haircut said it is attention-grabbing.

Cole Sterling, 21, a professional boxer in Tampa, Florida, buzzed off his long, fluffy hair as soon as the news broke that Kelce was with Swift. “I was like maybe I will try this haircut, and maybe I will get my own Taylor Swift?” he said.

He is still single, but it definitely caused him to interact with more people. “At first when I got it buzzed, at least three times a week people said I look like Travis Kelce,” he said. “It’s kind of grown out, but I’ll have to get it done again, hopefully next week.”

Tyson Schilling, 21, a college student who plays football for Texas A&M University-Commerce, said the haircut won him nicknames from teammates including “Little Travis” and “Kravis Telce.” “They said I had an alter ego,” he said.

“The girls also love it,” he added. “At bars I would get a lot of compliments and on social media. It was a pretty big hit.” (Not all the women in his life liked it immediately. “At first my mom didn’t like it, but then when I came home to visit she said it looks really good,” he said, laughing.)

He got his haircut in the fall but has since let it grow out. “It’s kind of expensive to maintain because you have to get it cut so much to make it look nice and clean,” he said. “I guess that is the price you pay for looking handsome.”

Some barbers have been caught off-guard by the requests.

The first time a client asked Amir Stapleton, a barber at That Feeling in Potters Bar, England, for Kelce’s look, he had to do some research. “I had to Google Travis myself to find out who he was talking about,” Stapleton said. Over the fall, Stapleton said, he received 15 to 20 requests for the cut.

But now he loves when clients ask for the look because it means they are excited about their hair. As he put it, “It makes someone who doesn’t really care about a haircut have something to say about it.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.