Mitchell Hartman

People want to see a value standard for your pricing.

Delores has been a barber for over 15 years, and one of the biggest changes he's seen is customers who come in less frequently than they used to.

Full disclosure, he's been my barber for more than five years.

I would have clients come in maybe three times a month.

Now you get in probably once a month, you know, so it's... I see you looking at me, man.

No, no, no, no, no.

Yeah, you're one of them.

He's right.

These days, I get in there about every month and a half.

Higher prices have also changed the culture inside the barbershop.

Dexter Barrow cuts hair in the more working-class neighborhood of Flatbush.

He's now charging $40, up from $25 in 2019.

And he's noticed a different feeling in his shop, too.

But now, with the higher prices and the vibe shift...

Barrows says fewer people are just hanging around the shop.

In charging and getting paid more, some barbers I've talked to feel like they're being recognized as the professionals they always have been.

And some customers see the new prices as the cost of keeping a community tradition alive.

In New York, I'm James Bennett II for Marketplace.

Unbeknownst to them, their teenage son had been moving around London with an alter ego.

He'd had a secret life, and he had been pretending that he was not their son, but in fact the billionaire son of a Russian oligarchy.