This paper aims to examine the process by which barbers' techniques and labour became institutionalised in the formative years of the barber industry in Japan.) Drawing on secondary sources and interviews with the staff of a vocational school, the paper focuses on the role of a textbook on haircutting theory, which was widely consumed among barbers and students at barber schools and that was responsible for the consolidation of what was then considered to be standard techniques. The training of barbers, which had hitherto been based on the apprentice system, was unified into school education system during the 1950s that called for a partial amendment of the Barber Law. Meanwhile, with a view to ensuring barbers' effciency in work and management, the Barbers Union brought the theory and techniqucs of haircutting into modules at barber schools. The findings demonstrate that, although the standardised techniques of haircutting promised barbers rational labour, their uniformity turned so obsolete in the wake of Japan's consumer society in the 1970s onwards that they have held little appeal to students in hairdressing. As a result, the standardisation of barbers' techniques and labour has given rise to conflict, which has eventually led to the decline in the number of barbers in favour of beauticians.
