The hair beforethe style.

The programme begins with the hair itself: its structure, its types, what it can take and what breaks it. A hairdresser who cannot read a scalp fits well the first time and damages it by the third.

Then come the techniques: simple and cornrowed braids, sewn-in and bonded weaves, locs to start and to retwist, colouring and relaxing. Each is practised on a training head before it is practised on a person, and never on a client before the sixth month.

The salon takes walk-ins: students see very different requests come through in a single day, which no exercise reproduces.