If you happen to walk through the streets of your city, you will surely have lingered on the creativity that characterizes the shop signs; however, there is a certain resemblance between those of barbers. Most of them, in fact, are white, blue and red, but why is there this uniformity?
To find an answer to this question, we have to take a leap into the Middle Ages, when barbers didn’t just cut hair and beards but they also performed other dutiesincluding surgery, wound care and dental care. In short, for the time, they were the only professionals able to know how to use a pair of scissors! So the barbers chose meticulously the colors that would represent them: White represented cleanliness, red corresponded to blood and blue to veins.
With the advent and rise of doctors, barbers have lost much of the tasks they once monopolized; however, the colors of the insignia they have remained the same.
Also, there is another very popular theory about the reason for the color triad of barbershops: they would be inspired by the coat of arms of the Frankish kings: it had a white background, a red band and three blue lilies. According to this interpretation, the guilds of craftsmen, including barbers, would have adopted the patriotic symbology.