Chop Shop
In 1979, James Lebon, the Vidal Sassoon-trained son of a West End plastic surgeon and a society swan, opened Cuts in a stall in the basement of London’s Kensington Market. The tiny salon became renowned not just for its androgynous, asymmetrical shags and clipped locks, but also for being the locus of the city’s post-punk, new-romantic scene, whose denizens depended on Lebon’s shears to help define their look. Its history is spotlighted Cuts, a 20-years-in-the-making documentary set for release later this year from filmmaker Sarah Lewis, who chronicles the salon’s scrappy beginnings; its fashionable clientele, which included Boy George, David Bowie, and Jean-Paul Gaultier; and its current iteration, We Are Cuts, located in Soho. This seminal site of London fashion culture, with its inclusive DIY idealism, aptly gets its due.
