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Since 2009
The atelier.
Sixteen years in the same Mayfair townhouse, built on one stubborn belief: great hair is engineered, not guessed.
Our beginning
Two chairs and a colour bar.
Isabelle Rey opened Lumière in 2009 with two chairs, a borrowed colour bar and a rule that has never been relaxed: no client is put in a chair before a twenty-minute consultation is finished. It cost us bookings in the first year. It is the reason we still have clients from that first year.
The townhouse on Bruton Place came in 2014. We kept the original staircase, replaced everything else, and doubled the extraction so the room never smells of a salon.
“If we cannot tell you how to keep it, we should not be giving it to you.”
That sentence is painted inside the staff room. It governs how we consult, how we price and what we refuse.
What we hold to
Three non-negotiables.
Every colour we mix is written into your record with water hardness, porosity and processing time. Any Lumière stylist can reproduce it exactly, including the ones who have not met you.
We do not double-book chairs. A ninety-minute appointment is ninety minutes of a stylist's attention, which is why we cannot always fit you in this week.
Roughly one consultation in six ends with us recommending less work than you came in asking for. Nobody here is paid commission, so nobody has a reason to say yes.
The record
Sixteen years, briefly.
Two chairs on Davies Street
Isabelle opens with one colourist and one apprentice. The consultation rule is written on day one.
The colour archive begins
Every formula is recorded rather than remembered. It becomes the single most-copied thing about us.
Bruton Place
The move to the townhouse. Six chairs, two private suites, and extraction that cost more than the fit-out.
Ammonia-free across the board
We drop our last ammonia line entirely, eighteen months after starting the switch.
The bridal suite
A dedicated private room and a travelling team for wedding mornings across the UK.
Salon of the Year
Twelve master stylists, and the same consultation rule we started with.
Come and see
Start with a consultation.
Twenty minutes, no charge, no obligation to book anything afterwards.