Oxford has a champion barber right here on Route 67.
For a second-consecutive year, Jesse Schremmer won the freesytle competition in the Connecticut Barber Battle held this past weekend at the Oakdale Theater in Wallingford.
Schremmer, the 28-year-old owner of Jesse's Barbershop on Route 67, competed against 26 other barbers to win the event, one of several different haircutting competitions held Sunday. He was told to design an image from memory - no pictures, videos, etc. - into the back of someone's head within 40 minutes.
"I wanted to do something that was hard but also I could finish and just put something clean out there that people said, 'Wow, that's really cool, can I take a picture," he said. And that's exactly what happenend.
There were more than 1,800 people who attended the third-annual event, which has competitors from all over the country, according to the Hartford Courant. Schremmer was admitedly nervous - "for about a month" - thinking about the competition.
"I know my skill set, but I take the competition very seriously," he said.
Schremmer finished barber school six years ago and opened his barbershop in Oxford shortly thereafter.
While in school, he watched a video of someone giving freestyle haircuts with designs. "I walked upstairs and said (to classmates), 'Who's gonna' let me try?," he said. "And that was it." He was hooked.
In Oxford, he gives designs to many children and teens who want to show off their sports team numbers or their favorite football squad logos. But that's not the only demographic he reaches. On a recent week day, men ranging from their teens to their 50s stopped in for a variety of styles.
"This barbershop, I want to make it a very diverse shop where I can do a comb over for a 60-year-old guy or I can do a very trendy piece," he said. "I want to do every cut I've ever seen."
