Long before becoming one of the most irreverent voices in Portuguese music, António Variações made a living cutting hair. And he wasn’t just any hairdresser: in 1979, he opened his own shop at No. 70 Rua de São José in Lisbon, with a name that already said a lot about him: “É Pró Menino e Prá Menina.” In fact, he preferred to say he was a barber, according to Observador.
Before music, the scissors
Born on December 3, 1944, in Fiscal, in the municipality of Amares, Variações spent time abroad in the 1970s, in London and in Amsterdam, where he worked as a hairdresser. In Lisbon, he worked at Salão Ayer, one of the city’s best-known salons.
In 1976, he joined Isabel Queiroz do Vale at the salon she opened in the Imaviz Shopping Center, considered Lisbon’s first unisex salon, according to DN. Next came Baeta, in Alvalade, until, in 1979, he decided to open his own barbershop.
By day at the barbershop, by night in music
During those years, Variações lived between two worlds: his working hours were devoted to his clients, and when the barbershop closed, the night belonged to music, as recalled by *Toponímia de Lisboa*. In 1983, his debut album, *Anjo da Guarda*, hit the stores, followed the next year by *Dar & Receber*.
There was no time for more. António Variações died on June 13, 1984, in Lisbon, at the age of 39, five years after opening his barbershop on Rua de São José. In 1998, the city named a street after him in Parque das Nações, and in 2019, his life was brought to the big screen in the film “Variações.”
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