New Bedford Barber Styles His Way Onto NBC’s ‘Today’
New Bedford High School graduate Travis Nunes was featured on Wednesday morning's "Today" on NBC.
Nunes graduated from New Bedford High in 2008. His original plan was to go to school as a theater major and become an actor.
After graduating from college, he worked onstage on some cruise ships for a while in Europe as a way to pay off his student loans. He moved to Los Angeles for a couple of years, trying to make his dream come true.
"As an actor, you always have to have a side hustle, so I turned to two things I learned from my parents back in New Bedford. I turned to photography and cutting hair."
Nunes' father is Steve Nunes, one half of the very popular New Bedford-based Imagemakers Photography.
"I feel like I got the photography knowledge from my dad," he said.
Nunes said his other side hustle was cutting hair. His mother owned Strands Hair Salon. It's now called Salon B, and is owned by Nunes' brother.
"It's funny, I kind of used both of those skills that I got from my parents.," Nunes said.
After living the life of a starving artist for a few years, Nunes decided to move into the more consistent industry of cutting hair in New York City. He has his own studio on Madison Avenue. He charges $100 for a basic haircut. Yes, we asked.
One of Nunes' customers is a man named Preston Conrad, who is a new-style fashion consultant on "Today" and Rachael Ray's talk show. Nunes was cutting Conrad's hair one morning and the topic of an upcoming appearance on "Today" came up.
"We're doing a makeover segment," Conrad told Nunes.
Nunes volunteered his services, met with the producer and was invited to join the segment.
"The feedback from this morning has been positive," Nunes said after his appearance. "I think the plan is to hopefully make this a regular segment on the 'Today' show."
Another New Bedford High grad doing great things.