The New Seats of Power

They were there not for some mysterious media convention, but to see Laurent DeLouya, the amiable proprietor of a hair salon that over 50 years has amassed a following that is kind of a cultural Core Club. It includes the playwright David Mamet; Peter Martins, the New York City Ballet’s ballet master in chief; Richard Plepler, HBO’s chief executive; and Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner’s chief executive.

Mr. DeLouya, a native of Casablanca, Morocco, who grew up in Paris, began cutting hair at 14 before moving to Manhattan when he was 22 to work in salons including the reputable but now defunct Cinandre. He eventually opened his own operation, La Boite a Coupe, in 1977 out of his father’s clothing shop on West 55th Street.

“I’d walk over hot coals for Laurent,” said Mr. Lerer, who has been Mr. DeLouya’s client for nearly 40 years and followed him through several relocations around the city, including to this one in 2011, a four-chair establishment with a simple manicure-pedicure station and a couple of hamsas for decor. He considers Mr. DeLouya practically family and has brought his own to the salon, including his son, Benjamin Lerer, a founder of the Web site Thrillist, for his first haircut at age 3.

Although he highlighted the barber’s skill (Mr. Martins called Mr. DeLouya “an artist”), Mr. Lerer said he kept going back because “it’s one of the few places in the world that I can get away.”

“Laurent has a calming presence and personality,” said Mr. Lerer, who prefers to go when the salon is empty. “He’s a wise man who you can talk to and you know it never goes beyond him. He’s a total mensch.”

While Mr. Lerer prefers the escape, for many other clients, Mr. DeLouya is a kind of ringmaster. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve met people through Laurent,” said Kenneth Zimmerman, a fashion consultant and a client since 1971. “If I come in complaining about how I’m having a real headache, maybe with some lawyer who’s giving me trouble, Laurent will say, ‘Let me call a couple lawyer guys I know.’ And then wow, you look at the two names and those guys are big shots.”

There was a time when power lunches or breakfasts were where deals got done in New York, but with expense accounts dwindling and everyone on a different diet, don’t count out the hair salon as a crucial networking site, the very opposite of the online kind.

Fern Mallis, the consultant who built her name at IMG Fashion, has been spending “quality time” at Stephen Knoll salon on Madison Avenue, where she has had her coif cut and colored for over 15 years.

“When you go to certain salons, you have this trust because it’s like everyone has the same point of view,” she said of the scene, which can include the clients Ian Schrager, Cindy Crawford and Maria Shriver. Ms. Mallis often runs into fellow fashion industry clients, but also “people you can’t get on the phone sometimes,” she said, adding: “You can send hundreds of text messages or Facebook all you want, but nothing is better than seeing somebody eye to eye. It short-circuits things. Instead of e-mails, it’s like: ‘Let’s talk. Give me your number,’ or ‘I have a project I want to talk to you about.’?”

Indeed, according to Lisa Pomerantz, the senior vice president for global communications and marketing at Michael Kors, certain salons have emerged as important forums precisely because everything else has gone virtual.

“It’s one of the few things you can’t do online,” Ms. Pomerantz said of hair maintenance. Like Candice Bergen, Christie Brinkley and the Spanx founder Sara Blakely, she both colors and schmoozes at Sharon Dorram on the Upper East Side. Another longtime client of Ms. Dorram’s, the jewelry designer Carol Brodie, said the colorist (whose intimate shop is within the Uptown location of the larger Sally Hershberger chain) is especially attuned to movers and shakers, for whom she’ll direct impromptu introductions and even arrange salon seating to foster connections. “Sharon can do the suburban blonde and Park Avenue blonde — so you do have those girls in the room — but she gravitates to certain people,” Ms. Brodie said. “She loves the power blonde. So you’re going to get the editors and business people.”

Ms. Pomerantz said, “She understands how valuable an exchange is.”

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