(Maev Kennedy) The doors have been locked for 15 years, but the barber's side still smells faintly of Brylcreem, the hairdresser's of perm lotion.
This week experts from the Museum of Welsh Life begin to dismantle a unique shop interior, itself a miniature museum of 20th-century hairdressing.
When John Lewis founded his hairdressing business in the 1930s, his smart modern shop brought a little glow of glamour to the main street of Aberdare, in the South Wales valleys.
The salon was last modernised in the late 1950s and early 1960s by his son Thomas, in sugar pink for the ladies' side, run by his sisters Mari and Olive, and baby blue for the gents' domain.
The shop closed and was sorely missed after Lewis's unexpected death in 1990. However, everything was maintained and kept in immaculate order by Lewis's sisters, who returned regularly to do their own hair.
After their death the family offered every last hairpin, heated roller and shampoo dispenser to the museum, which has has a collection of historic buildings from all over Wales reconstructed at its site at St Fagans near Cardiff.
Gerallt Nash, the museum's head of historic buildings, said the salon was a particularly welcome addition to a collection that includes farm buildings, a school, a bakery, a workmen's institute - and an entire police station still bagged up and awaiting reconstruction.
"Most of our working buildings tell the stories of very male-dominated occupations and trades such as tanners, millers and blacksmiths, but this hairdressing salon will allow us to address the story of women's growing independence and working lives," he said.
"The iconic styles of the 1950s and 1960s can very clearly be seen in the salon, whilst the barber's still has that very distinct feel and smell of testosterone, Brylcreem and a little something for the weekend."
Source from guardian.co.uk
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