General News
28 July, 2026
Hair-raising exhibition opens
Talbot Museum invites the community to their latest exhibition on the local history of the hairdressing trade.
Talbot Museum is inviting the community to comb-over to their new exhibit on the equipment used by a century of local barbers and hairdressers.
Brushes and razors, hairdryers and clippers, they’re all familiar parts of the hairdressing trade and just a handful of the antiques the Talbot Museum has recently put on display.
The centrepiece is a barber’s chair used on Scandinavian Crescent by William Whittaker in the early 1900s, and his son until the late 1950s, before spending years in a shearing shed.
However, it was a collection of donated straight razors which inspired the exhibition.
Talbot Arts and Historical Museum’s secretary Tina Fowler said she “got lost” in the collection’s history.
“We’ve got a beautiful selection of cut-throats here,” she said.
The organisation’s president Leanne Boyle said locals would be surprised by the exhibit’s stories.
“When you show people and you talk about stuff with them they just love it,” she said.
“People absolutely enjoy the local history.”
The exhibit is the culmination of weeks of work, years of community donations, all capturing generations of local life.
The objects tell a story which is over a century old, that starts with barbers moonlighting as surgeons and tobacconists, and ends in more recent decades.
Ms Boyle said long-time residents will find some pieces nostalgic, as she did.
A standing hairdryer, used in the now closed Hairport on Star Street, was a “time warp” to the 1970s.
“I remember going to and having a haircut there when I was a kid,” she said.
Ms Fowler had a similar experience with a shaving brush which was used in World War II.
“My dad used to have that and I remember I would wander in and dad would put it on me,” she said.
Ms Boyle encouraged the community to see the exhibit for themselves.
“People should come around and check out the generous donations we’ve had from locals and people all over,” she said.
Those interested in exploring the museum’s collection can visit on Sundays, including during the Talbot Farmers’ Market, from 1 pm to 4 pm.