at the parlor; Champagne and haircuts are the order of the day-and night-at Ashley Javier's private Manhattan atelier.(Parlor)

Byline: Plum Sykes

There is a scruffy gray commercial building on the corner of Twenty-eighth Street and Fifth Avenue. Devoid of glamour, it is situated on the kind of grim Manhattan intersection that can provoke clinical depression in even the cheeriest girl. But it is here that the downtown style crowd- model Jacquetta Wheeler, Marchesa designer Georgina Chapman, stylist Rebecca Guinness, actress Beau Garrett-flocks in the late afternoons and early evenings. Secretly perched on the roof of the building is a rambling penthouse and foliage-filled terrace, home to Ashley Javier and his Parlor. It is here that Javier dishes up New Hair, Daily Greens (more of which later), and Glittering Gossip.

At six o'clock on a fresh spring evening, I find myself climbing a winding staircase to the aforementioned penthouse. "Yeeeewwwlll!" A shaved Yorkie spirals down the stairs, barking in that high-pitched tone peculiar to dogs that are too small for themselves. Straight ahead is an old 1960s sign propped against the wall. It reads, beauty salon.

Inside, Ashley Javier awaits his girls in the drawing room. Cuddling the Yorkie, he says the dog was "a gift from Jemma Kidd and Arthur Mornington. He's called Tennessee, but his middle name is Morningkidd." Thirty-six years old, tall and olive-complected with dark hair, Javier is clad in skinny black jeans, a Brioni shirt, and Yves Saint Laurent deck shoes. He tells me he is of Moroccan descent but spent his childhood in the Philippines and then Jacksonville, Florida. He arrived in New York at 22, evolved from colorist to cutter, and spent a combined ten years assisting legendary stylists Sam Mc_Knight and Odile Gilbert before setting up on his own three years ago. He speaks with an old-fashioned Southern accent, to spectacular effect. "When it comes to hairdressing," he declares, "I." (Dramatic pause.) "Am." (Even longer dramatic pause.) "Obsessed." I perch on a huge, aubergine-colored mohair sofa, and Ashley rushes to fetch me one of raw-foods chef Jill Pettijohn's organic health drinks called Daily Greens, which are delivered twice a week.

Tonight, explains Ashley, returning with a violently hued drink, is one of his Scenarios-girls coming by for cut, color, and the witticisms only Ashley can deliver. His home is perfect for such happenings, being decorated like a nightclub-slash-boudoir. Three crystal chandeliers hang from the ceiling of the dove-gray drawing room, reflecting off the shiny black floors and highlighting the little chairs and loungers upholstered in satins and silks that are dotted around the room. Across the corridor, the salon, which boasts just three cutting chairs, is all white with black leather Louis-style sofas, one wall covered in black-and-white Cowtan & Tout floral wallpaper. Outside, the roof deck is thick with Japanese maple and blue spruce. When he arrived on ...