Shear Elegance Stylists Open Own Salon ... in the Middle of a Blizzard

IRVING PARK — It took Elma Feriz three buses to get to work Monday — first the Lincoln, then the Western and finally the Irving Park route — but she wasn't about to let a little old blizzard get in the way of her second day on the job at Cutting Edges Beauty Salon.

Scratch that. Second day as co-owner of Cutting Edges.

After a decade as a stylist at Lincoln Square's Shear Elegance, Feriz has struck out on her own with Cutting Edges, 2941 W. Irving Park Road, along with two of her Shear Elegance co-workers, Iskra Nikolaeva Uzejrovic and Zoran Tomic.

Never mind that every client canceled their appointment Monday, there was no dampening the spirits of these newly minted entrepreneurs, who weren't about to close their doors having just officially opened on Sunday.

"I think it's a good sign," Uzejrovic said of the weather system that dumped more than 19 inches of snow on Chicago over the weekend. "The storm covers all the past. It's a new beginning."

Patty Wetli says the owners have found a silver lining:

Fresh starts are nothing new to the three business partners, all of whom originally hail from Eastern Europe: Feriz, 33, is from Bosnia; Uzejrovic, 29, is from Bulgaria; and Tomic, 32, is from Serbia.

Though Feriz and Uzejrovic are married, none of the three has immediate family in the United States.

"We're all on our own," said Feriz, who came to Chicago in 2003 to work as an au pair.

Two years later, Feriz, who was a hair stylist back in Bosnia, found work at Shear Elegance. Tomic was hired in 2009 and Uzejrovic in 2011.

"We're not that close that we hang out every day," said Feriz. "But we work good, we get along very good. We have same ideas."

"We want to be modern ... to follow all the new trends," said Uzejrovic, who's been styling hair since she was a little girl — if chopping the locks of dolls counts. 

"I waited for it to grow back," she said, laughing at the memory.

Uzejrovic originally earned a degree in psychology in Bulgaria but switched careers when she couldn't find a job in her chosen field.

Styling isn't all that different from practicing psychology, she said.

"We treat people," Uzejrovic said. "We make them prettier, happier."

For Tomic, who takes on only male clients while the other two "do everything," Cutting Edges is the realization of a goal he set as a child.

How long has he wanted to be a stylist? "All my life," he said. "Since the first grade, I talked about that with my family."

Now that the three have a lease on their own slice of the American Dream, they're focused on growing their fledgling business.

"We'll give our best in our place," said Tomic.

Though they have plans to reach out to new customers via social media and good old-fashioned fliers, initially the stylists said they will rely on existing clients to follow them to their new home.

"It's going to take time for people to know where we are," Feriz said.

It only took John Babos, a longtime client of Tomic's, a day to locate Cutting Edges.

He popped in unannounced on Monday with his two children, driving in all the way from Deerfield on a snow day for his son to get a trim from Tomic.

"I've used so many hairstylists, they could not get it right. Zoran is the one who can," Babos said. "You stick with people you like."

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