🇮🇹 A day with Ivan Bognanni in Tortona, Italy
Some places don’t end up on tourist maps, and that’s exactly why they matter.
Tortona is one of those places – a small Italian town, quiet on the surface, but hiding the kind of stories you only find if you know where to look.
That’s where Stijn De Sutter went to visit an old acquaintance with a new chapter: barber and educator Ivan Bognanni.
Ivan isn’t a stranger to Stijn.
Years ago, he trained in the world-famous Scapicchio Academy, walking the same corridors, holding the same razors, soaking in the same obsession for traditional Italian barbering. But at some point, Ivan did what real craftsmen eventually do: he stepped out and built something of his own. His own shop. His own academy. His own way. In Tortona.
From the moment Stijn arrived, the tone was set: big hospitality in a small town.
The kind that doesn’t need to be announced. A warm welcome, easy laughter, the feeling that you’re not just a guest but already halfway to being family. The barbershop itself felt like a reflection of Ivan’s personality: open, alive, nothing stiff or pretentious about it – just a place where people clearly like to be.
What makes Ivan interesting is not just his background, but his choices.
He’s an Italian barber who loves working with hard English soaps. That alone is a beautiful contradiction. In a country famous for its own barbershop products, he reaches for dense, traditional English pucks: loading the brush with intention, building thick, rich lather that clings to the skin and supports the blade like a silent assistant.
Atypical? Absolutely.
But that’s the point. Passion doesn’t always follow the flag.
The conversation between Stijn and Ivan didn’t feel like a formal meeting.
It felt like two barbers picking up a thread that had never really been cut. They talked about the past days at Scapicchio, about how those lessons shaped them, and about what it means to step out and create your own academy, your own identity, without losing respect for where you came from.
They traded stories about:
– The state of the industry now – fast, noisy, full of shortcuts
– What it takes to keep real technique alive in a market that doesn’t always care
– How to teach young barbers that a straight razor is more than a prop for Instagram
– The future of barber education in Europe, and where tradition still fits in
There was warmth in every word.
Not just professional respect, but something deeper – a shared understanding that this craft has given them both a life, and that they carry a responsibility with it. To teach well. To work honestly. To keep the barbershop as a place of calm and care, not just a conveyor belt for quick cuts.
Underneath it all, Ivan’s personality shines through:
good-humoured, generous, and completely in love with what he does. You see it in the way he talks about his academy in Tortona. You feel it in the way he sets up his tools, the pride he takes in his students, the way he lights up when he talks about shaving, lather, soap, steel.
The visit wasn’t some staged collaboration or marketing stunt.
It was two professionals sitting down, sharing time, food and stories – covering everything from small technical tricks to big questions about where our trade is heading. The kind of talk that leaves you a little more charged, a little more focused, and a lot more convinced that there’s still something worth fighting for in this industry.
Stijn left Tortona with that familiar mix of gratitude and restlessness:
grateful for the hospitality, for the wisdom, for the reminder that there are still barbers out there who care deeply. Restless in the good way – hungry to push further, to dive deeper into the craft, to bring that same energy back to Ghent, to ROMAIN and to the Academy.
Thank you, Ivan Bognanni.
For the welcome, the conversation, the courage to walk your own path, and the passion that pours out of every blade, brush and bar of soap in your shop.
Arrivederci – and see you very soon.
Want to join the Scapicchio Academy at ROMAIN in Ghent, belgium?
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