Historic hair salon museum piece

Experts will re-erect the salon at the museum site

A 1950s-style hairdressing salon and barbers, complete with unused lacquer, is being dismantled piece by piece to be rebuilt as a museum exhibit.

Lewis's at Aberdare in the south Wales valleys has been closed for business for decades but the shop remains completely intact.

Experts are now conserving the salon to re-erect at the Museum of Welsh Life in St Fagans near Cardiff.

They describe the sugar pink and baby blue salon as a "time capsule".

Gerallt Nash, the Head of Historic Buildings at the museum, said that the salon offers a snapshot of women's lives, style and growing independence at the cusp of the 1960s.

The salon looks as it did on the day it closed

He said that the salon, which has been empty for decades, was donated to the museum by the family who own it.

The business was started by John Lewis from Cwmdare in the 1930s.

As a 17-years-old, he moved the business to Gadlys, Aberdare, and the business expanded as his children Thomas, Margaret Olive and Sarah Mary (Mari) took up the scissors.

Father and son ran the barbers while Mari and Olive ran the hairdressing salon with the help of two apprentices.

But the salon closed with the sudden death of Thomas in 1990. His two sisters recently passed away.

The museum is now looking for a setting for the building

Mr Nash said that most of the museum's buildings told stories of male-dominated occupations but the hairdressing salon would "look at women's growing independence and working lives".

He said: "The iconic styles of the 1950s and early 60s can be very clearly seen in the salon whilst the barber still has that very distinct feel and smell of testosterone, Brylcreem and a little something for the weekend!"

He said workers from the museum were in the process of dismantling the salon piece by piece to rebuilt at the site in St Fagans.

"It's a time capsule - it is a complete hairdressing salon which has survived in its original appearance from the 1950s," he said.

"It's an aspect of everyday life, which at the moment we are not covering.

"And it gives us an opportunity to fill in part of the jigsaw of how people lived in the past - people's daily lives," he added.

Mr Nash is now looking for the perfect setting for the salon.

"What we need now is a small terrace of shops to accommodate it, and some of the other interiors that we have in store, such as an Italian café."