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Vidal Sassoon's Life Through A Lens
Posted by
Kate
Dated: February 16, 2008 3:48 PM
Vidal Sassoon, the most influential hairdresser of all time, reflects upon some of the most iconic images of his glittering career.
 | "I cut this model’s hair for a show in 1961. She had great hair that worked well with our haircuts. I first did this look on Nancy Quan, which was then photographed by Terence Donovan.
We worked on shows and magazine shoots all the time – we were very lucky. We were so involved in what we were doing that it became part of the culture in London at the time." |
| "This is me with Broadway star Carol Channing in the early 60s. I created this look firstly at the Ungaro show in Paris and then flew to New York and recreated it on Carol.
My philosophy when working with designers was that I create the hair and they create the clothes; Ungaro wouldn’t let me have an input into the clothes so I wouldn’t let him have an input into the hair. It was totally my creation. After I had given this style to Carol, she appeared on stage every night for a year and got a huge amount of exposure and people started copying the look. It was a very interesting time for us; American hairdressers had no idea how to create geometric styles, although we had been doing it in the UK for four years." |  |
 | "This was the Greek Goddess, which we created in 1967. I’d had my appendix out just before the shoot for Paula Kent at Redken, so I sat and directed Roger Thompson and Annie Humphreys as I couldn’t do it myself.
We worked all weekend to get the end result, after being inspired by curly hair we had seen in Harlem, New York. Roger cut the hair – it was one of his best haircuts – and Annie permed it. It was the first time a perm and cut hadn’t been set. I was looking at it and said leave it, that is it. It was something that just happened and we knew it was different and interesting. It appeared in The Mirror and got great coverage, then it appeared in American Vogue and everyone wanted it. It was an exciting time." |
| "Peggy Moffitt was a top model and muse for designer Rudi Gernreich. I was working in London when I received a call asking me to fly to the US to do the hair for a shoot.
I cut the hair and Peggy played up for the camera – and it worked brilliantly." |  |
 | "I was 22 years-old here, working at Romaines on the Edgware Road in London. It was my first job after training with Silvio Camillo.
I did a lot of competition work then, which had nothing to do with fashion, but it was great as it really taught me about hair. I won a couple of competitions but I was never the best – I lost quite a few as well!" |
| "Film director Roman Polanski asked me to fly to the US to work with Mia Farrow, who was married to Frank Sinatra at the time and working on a film with Roman, Rosemary’s Baby.
I told him I would have to cancel appointments and meetings, so it would cost him $5,000. He said no problem, so I went over and did her hair in the middle of a boxing ring for a press call. It was a circus, and she couldn’t understand why they were interested in her hair when she wanted to talk about the problems and issues surrounding American Indians. I just got on with doing my thing, which received a huge amount of publicity – if I’d realised that I would have charged more!" |  |
 | "This is me with Richard Salomon, chairman of Charles of the Ritz, who also brought YSL to New York. I was working on a shoot for Queen magazine in the early 60s, when I got a call from him asking for a meeting.
We were cutting geometric shapes, which very few people knew how to do. We had trained ourselves and worked for nine years developing these shapes, it was an extraordinary time. So, I met with Richard who had a proposition for me. He wanted me to go back to London, train a team who would go back to New York, he would buy a building on Madison Avenue, we would become partners and open the first salon in America. Talk about good luck! If the world wants something, then it will happen." |
| "This is my all time favourite style – the five point cut. It took me nine years to get it right.
"I thought I had to do something different and to me it wasn’t work, it wasn’t a hobby, it was what I lived for." |  |
Tags: Vidal Sassoon
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Comments (1)
Posted by v.a.seward
Dated: November 5, 2008 5:59 AM
how can my hair stylist get your lovely Greek Goddess look i.e. perm and cut thanks