The Master of French-Girl Hair Opens His First New York Salon
The “mother shop,” as hairstylist David Mallett charmingly calls his flagship salon near Paris’s Place des Victoires, abounds with creature comforts: herringbone wood floors, fresh flowers (courtesy of Léa Seydoux on one visit), a taxidermied panther in repose. That domestic sensibility—a nod to the Australian expat’s early career, cutting friends’ hair at home between styling jobs for French Vogue—is part of what reels in regulars like Clémence Poésy, Natacha Ramsay-Levi, and Charlotte Gainsbourg. The rest, of course, is all about the hair. Refined, unstudied: These cuts are the sort of thing certain people cross oceans for.
Now, with today’s anticipated opening of Mallett’s first New York location—tucked away on the fifth floor of Laure Hériard Dubreuil’s concept shop the Webster Soho—his coterie of loyalists finally has a new place to call home. For the French-born Dubreuil, who counts herself a client and friend, Mallett’s spaces manage to stoke a sense of camaraderie, where “everybody is part of the club, and it’s very warm,” she says. “I have always felt that the salon is a place where time stops—I like that.”
Conjuring that European à l’aise pace in go-go-go Manhattan is a tall order, but the sumptuous 15-foot marble table bisecting the interior (whose design was overseen by architect Charles Zana) is one place to unwind. “That’s where people will eat clementines, read fashion books, look at geisha wigs, and see Ettore Sottsass candleholders,” muses Mallet. “I want it to be a place where your senses are heightened,” he adds of the sunlit eight-chair salon, decked out in custom furnishings and lighting by François Pouenat.
But the talents standing behind the white Saarinen Tulip chairs are the most valuable import, Mallett stresses. “I really do not adhere to the idea of franchise,” explains the hairstylist, who first expanded two years ago, with a jewel-box outpost inside Paris’s newly renovated Ritz. For this far more daunting project, he has assembled an A-team of his most trusted stylists and colorists, including Rishi Jokhoo (a Gainsbourg favorite) and Anthony Deliperi (who styles Emma Watson). “The message was, ‘You are my eyes in New York,’” explains Mallett of the mind meld that links his team; as for when he’s in town, there’s already a mile-long wait list.
The secret, he says, is a kind of unspoken telepathy that forms between hairstylist and client. “A French woman wants to feel understood without communicating,” Mallett says, describing a group of overtaxed creative types—photographers, designers, actors—just as likely to be found in Manhattan. The feeling of being taken care of, truly taken care of, is at the heart of the salon’s mission, from the genteel attentiveness down to the microscopic health of the hair fibers. (A four-step restorative treatment called Tokio Inkarami—full of keratins, amino acids, and beneficial oils—is one of the location’s signature services; the hairstylist’s own cultish products are another draw.) The other gift? “Having the divine energy of Laure below us, vibrating up to us on the fifth floor. She’s like a bottle of Champagne!” The feeling is mutual, says Dubreuil: “We can already feel the good vibes.”
David Mallett à New York is located on the fifth floor of the Webster Soho, 29 Greene Street; david-mallett.com.
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