Let me introduce you to Hari. If you don't know him yet it's time you did. Hari is to hairdressing what the slightly beaten-up antique leather chair is to the fashionable interior; he is a 'find'. He is also, like the chair, reassuring and relaxed - he doesn't strut and grab the limelight, yet in his understated, unshow-offy way he's as cool and hip as they come.

Hari started off at Leonard, the glamour crimper of the early Sixties. He worked with the models of the day such as Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton. He then went on work at the legendary Molton Brown salon before making a big leap and opening his own salon on Sydney Street in Chelsea. "We had Bianca Jagger, The Rolling Stones and Margaret Trudeau," recalls Hari, "I think they liked the fact it was so cosy, almost like a club". Twenty years ago Hari's moved to Brompton Cross. He gave his new salon the same relaxed air as the old one, a bit cutting edge, a bit funky with some unusal art around the place that people can buy if they fancy it. What keeps punters coming back is that Hari understands intuitively what the modern woman wants.

"They don't come to the hairdresser to be 'ponced up'. They're short of time and they want a great cut that really suits them, not some standard formula that is supposed to be the 'look' of the moment. They want something that they can live with afterwards, with a bit of 'edge' but that doesn't need hours of grooming to get it looking right."