Modern Salon - December 2008 - (Page 33)

T he professional beauty industry would not be what it is today without the work, innovation, inspiration, commitment and influence of Vidal Sassoon. I had the privilege to sit down with the father of modern hairdressing and an exemplary steward of social consciousness to talk about his past, present and future. During our time together, I learned where this man came from and where he is going. At 80 years old, Sassoon is not done. Sassoon not only revolutionized the beauty industry through his famous cuts and commitment to education, but also through his various philanthropic efforts. His “rags-to-riches” saga is one that has been chronicled worldwide and gives him the compassion and empathy to bring hope and help to others. His revolutionary system of cutting hair was the metamorphosis that has led hundreds of thousands of hairdressers around the globe to new heights as their craft was turned into an art form by a man and his shears. Although he has stepped away from dressing hair, which he has left to the next generations, Sassoon still works for and with hairdressers to promote a greater good and a better world all in the name of the craft. A few years ago, I met with Sassoon at the Sassoon Academy in Santa Monica, California. It was then that he told me “you have to share and pass on what you have created and learned. There are too many people who are too afraid to share. If you keep it all to yourself, when you go it goes—that which you have created dies with you.” Through his influence, his craft, his teachings and his philanthropic efforts we continue to witness this belief and his philosophy in action. player, she said, “No, there is no future in that.” Obviously she did not imagine what is going on today [in soccer]. AML: What was your first job in the industry? VS: In 1942, my mum took me to Adolph Cohen’s salon on White Chapel Road in the heart of the East Side of London. He gave me a job as a shampoo boy. Meanwhile, London was being bombed by the German Airforce every night. We would sleep in bomb shelters, yet every morning Adolf Cohen expected us to have creases in our trousers, clean shoes and clean nails. It was unreal. Funny enough, we managed it somehow. We stuck our trousers under the mattress and slept on them so they would not be wrinkled. [Adolph Cohen] created in me the sense that discipline was a necessary inconvenience. That time really showed me the triumph of the human spirit. AML: Where did you learn to cut hair and who taught you? VS: I worked for a man named Raymond “Mr. Teasey Weasey,” as he was known. He had a way of using a small pair of scissors to shape, prune and cut angular hair. He taught me how to use a pair of scissors. He was an amazing man, truly my hero. AML: When did you open your first salon? VS: In 1954 we opened a third floor salon on Bond Street—the wrong side of Bond Street. After two years it became impossible—we got so busy there were people sitting on the stairs. AML: When you started, what was happening in the professional beauty industry? VS: There were really three main things happening that were in the midst of changing. In the salon, we were mostly seeing backcombing, chignons and sets. We began to change that with geometric cutting and angles suited for individual bone structure. We were also doing color. When we first started to do color we made our bleach from peroxide and ammonia. The peroxide was poured into the bowl and mixed, then very carefully the ammonia was poured into the peroxide, and we had bleach. It was pathetic in a way, but you have to start from somewhere. Suddenly companies started to develop colors from new technology and a new essence of what color was about arose that gave the colorist the ability to change and create so many things. The third thing was how we handled curl. In 1965 we opened [the salon] in New York. I started to look around at the hair and I thought to myself, why denegrate curl? Why not utilize it? I went back to London and took a weekend at the Grosvenor House with Roger Thompson, Annie Humphreys, Christopher Brooker and a photographer. We spent all weekend cutting, perming, trying to get something, and then we did. It was there that the Greek Goddess was created. During that session the main sense of who we were was the passion we put into our work, and passion creates vision. It’s the passion and the work that leads to success. AML: What would you say were your growth years? VS: The real creation happened 1954-1967. It really took nine years to change from the hairdressing I was doing to where we got to by 1963. Then, from ’63 to ’67 we continued working hard and creating new cuts. In the beginning, I didn’t really have the passion or any special talents. It wasn’t until much later that I started to rationalize, think and feel the passion of the craft and look at architecture. The great architects were my idols. I thought if we could cut hair in shapes and angles, we could do for a bone structure what architecture does for a city. I gave myself five years to get out of the old ways and change what was going on in the craft. When I looked at all the teasing and the backcombing and the chignons, they were all beautifully done but it did not seem to work with the clothes being designed and what was happening on the streets of London or around the world. AML: Your geometric hair cuts and shapes liberated women from going to the salon every few days to once a month for their cuts. You also made the salon less of an elitist luxury. Did the shift in politics and culture at the time have an effect on this revolutionary change in hairdressing? VS: London was changing and the whole ideal of the British mentality was changing. People like Pinto began writing about what was really going on, not about the aristocracy but really about the way people lived. Mary Quant came along with the way she Continued www.modernsalon.com DECEMBER 2008 33 Alicia Marantz Liotta: I’ve read that your mother had a dream that you were going to become a hairdresser. Is this what you always wanted to do? Vidal Sassoon: First I wanted to be a soccer player and then an architect. I was 14 years old and WWII was on. It was a time when you did not have many choices unless you were coming out of a very good school, which I was not. My mother said she had this dream that I would become a hairdresser and I would go work for a man named Adolph Cohen. I told my mum I wanted to be a soccer http://www.modernsalon.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Modern Salon - December 2008

Modern Salon - December 2008 Contents Behind the Cover Notebook Modernsalon.com New-Now-Next Modern Reports Ask the Experts Living Legend 50 Influential Hairdressers Innovators and Pioneers Celebrity Stylists Educators Trendsetters International Influencers The Season of Giving Modern Hair Modern Beauty The Goods Personal Style

Modern Salon - December 2008

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