The Five Men's Haircuts Sydney Is Asking For in 2026

Four months into 2026 and the haircut chart at all three UPTOWN Barbers shops looks nothing like the one we'd have written you in January. Some of the predictions held. A lot of them did not. Here's what's actually walking through the door at The Rocks, St James and the Dymocks Building every week, ranked by how often we're cutting it.

1. The mid-fade with a textured fringe

This is the most booked haircut across all three shops this year, and it isn't close.

A medium fade on the sides (a proper number two or a clean taper, not skin), length kept on top, dropped forward into a soft fringe. The fringe is textured, never blunt. Point-cut, slight separation, no schoolboy line.

It works because it photographs well, it grows out cleanly, and it suits the median Sydney head.

If you've got a strong jaw, this haircut frames it. If you've got a softer face, the texture on top adds angle. Hard to get wrong if you're sitting in the right chair.

2. The modern mullet

The mullet didn’t die. It quietened down. Through 2024 it was a costume on Friday nights. Through 2025 it became a haircut. By May 2026 it's a regular request from the kind of bloke who wears a Patagonia fleece to the office and rides a Marin gravel bike on weekends.

The 2026 version is shorter on the back, with clean weight through the perimeter, and side-swept, tidy length on top.

The line at the temples is softer, not a hard step. It's a proper haircut, not a statement.

3. The proper side part

The classic isn’t going anywhere. We’ve cut more side parts in the last three months than in the previous nine, mostly on blokes between 32 and 50 who’ve decided the textured-front look has had its run. Scissor work on top, taper on the sides, hard part for the blokes who want it (not many do).

The cleanest version we cut needs about an inch of length on top and a comb that knows where it lives.

4. The scissor crop

Different to the textured fringe, shorter with no fade at all. It’s a French-style crop, done with scissors front to back. Suits thick straight hair best. Doesn’t suit fine hair, which is the most common mistake we see when blokes show us a photo and we have to talk them out of it.

The scissor crop is also the haircut that takes the most skill to cut and the least skill to maintain.

Two minutes of Layrite Cement in the morning and you’re done. Back in every four weeks, no panic.

5. The grown-out classic

Length on top, length on the sides, no fade, no taper, just a clean shape. The kind of cut your grandfather had and your son will probably have too. Coming back fast, especially among the 35-plus crowd who lived through the skin-fade decade and are quietly ready for something else.

It’s the slowest-growing trend in the chart and the one with the longest tail. Nobody asks for “the grown-out classic”by name. They just stop asking for the fade and start asking for length.

The one already on the way out

The broccoli front. The high-volume fluffy front you saw on every 19-year-old TikTok lad through 2024 and 2025 is collapsing under its own weight. We’re still asked for it, but the requests are dropping month on month, and the blokes who got one in February are coming back for something cleaner.

The skin fade is the other one slipping. Not gone, but no longer the default. The taper has taken over for most of our regulars.

Which one to ask for if you only book one this year

Mid-fade with a textured fringe. It's the safest cut in the chart, the most flattering across face shapes, and the easiest to maintain between visits.

Book it in for a Thursday afternoon at any of the three shops and you'll walk out looking sharper than 80% of the men around you on the train home.