We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Josue Martinez,Daniel Adame a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Josue Martinez,Daniel Adame, appreciate you joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

This was a passion project created during a time of need but more than anything it’s something that was created to showcase a beautiful profession and craft on a smaller and more intimate scale. There are other publications that share knowledge of this industry but they tend to focus more on “big names” where we wanted to shine the light on those who don’t aim to be famous and rather are more concerned with providing a better service for those they see day to day who truly are the reason these barbers are able to have a career and provide for themselves and their families. Our goal was to give those who aren’t seeking fame a platform to share their thoughts or insights on the industry and what they feel can improve and ways they help to preserve it. It’s one of the oldest professions in the world that’s still around today and very little has changed as far as the main purpose of seeing a barber; technology has made way for better instruments to get the job done and hairstyles have changed as well but the idea of sitting in a barber chair for a service is still present and has been way before it was “cool” to be a barber,and some barbers just want to remain focused on that and keep the fame or politics out of it.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

We started this in 2020 when the world as we knew it had changed. This was created for fun but quickly grew into something more that we didn’t know would be perceived so well. We are a small,very do-it-yourself publication where everything is done by us completely including printing. We discuss the subject matter of every issue and do it at our pace with no deadlines which ensures what we put out is up to our standards without any limitations or restrictions. We have grown a natural following through only 1 social media page and have grown by word of mouth and have reached readers throughout the world from Germany,Canada,Australia,Greece,The U.S.,and The Netherlands. It’s great to know we are welcomed into barbershops globally with more and more readers every day.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

What we cherish is knowing the audience we have has grown naturally without us having to buy advertisements,our readers have spread the world for us and have formulated interest in what we are doing therefore expanding our reach. We pride ourselves on making a product we’re proud of but also doing it by our rules with no outside restrictions or influences,what you see is what you get and knowing that people are into it and can appreciate what we do is a reward in itself. We also feel our originality is another element people can enjoy,our issues aren’t filled with ad after ad of products that people aren’t interested in,we’re more focused on providing a subject matter within our pages that our readers really care about.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

We feel what’s truly helped us get to where we are is just being true and authentic to ourselves and doing things the way we want. We aren’t trying to be a major publication because those already exist and we couldn’t even begin to catch up with them; they have full staffs of writers and editors and photographers but what we lack into that we make up for in having no limitations or deadlines therefore can create a more quality product that is focused on a few things per issue as opposed to struggling to find subject matter just to fill some pages. We try to establish relationships with those who have supported us from day one and those who purchase our zine wherever they may be, sending an email or DM to us means we read it and we reply-you get no automated responses from us or a 3-5 business day grace period, you can get in touch with us directly to voice a concern or provide feedback. It’s our level of commitment to customer service that separates us from the rest aside from a quality product.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Gentlemansparlorzine
• Other: Gpzine@gmail.com