A LONG-STANDING York men's hairdressers is on the move.

Cads has moved from Church Street after 26 years - into a modern new home in Fossgate.

Owner David Smith decided to move out of his old premises before the lease expired after a previous rent rise of 60 per cent.

Instead, he has spent £60,000 completely transforming his new home to create what is possibly the country's first separate men's and women's salon house under one roof.

David, 48, said: "It seemed the ideal solution and I hope it will please our loyal clients and attract more customers, with room for us to expand in the future.

"I was spending £30,000 a year on rent and rates for the shop in Church Street, but I own this building and just needed to make some alterations to it."

The premises previously housed Femme Fatales women's salon, managed by David's wife, Valerie, 46.

Now, it has been cleverly redesigned into two separate shops - with the same attractive black, white and chrome styling - which have individual entrances to a joint beauty salon upstairs.

David explains: "I think men and women like to have their hair done separately by specialists but, in this way, the two shops are closely linked. Most salons are unisex and I can't think of anywhere else that does this.

"It has allowed us to start a men's grooming service which means that customers can have facials, manicures, massages or waxing without having to go to a women's beauty salon.They will be led through Cads to a waiting area and taken by a member of staff straight to their own treatment room."

David, of Haxby, hopes to take on extra stylists and another beautician in future, and has a long term plan of developing the historic high-arched cellars into separate men's and women's saunas.

He also plans to have a film made of the treatments available and play it in the window display to let people know the services on offer.

"It would have been too difficult to expand at Church Street, because we were spread over three floors, and you couldn't have the open-plan look of a modern salon," said David, who owns another premises in Micklegate which is run on a franchise.

"But at Femme Fatales, the booths were really spread out and it looked strange, as if the salon wasn't busy.

"Now we have the best of both worlds and I hope customers will like it."

Updated: 11:25 Thursday, March 30, 2006