Modern Salon - December 2008 - (Page 34)

AML: What was your favorite part of doing hair? VS: The intuitive days, the days when we just took chances and worked from the gut. Also, the excitement of not only being creative but of having others want your creativity. We were asked to do Ungaro’s first two shows when he left Balenciaga. Every other weekend I was in Paris working with Elaine Lazareth at Elle. Essentially though, if I were to boil the whole thing down, which is so difficult to do because there are so many aspects to it and so much talent, it is the young people who wanted to learn the methods and then took it their way that I believe is the true international success of what I’ve started. AML: You also revolutionized education. Before you, beauty schools were merely teaching the basics. When did you decide to also focus on education? How did your system of education, true teaching and hands-on training come about? VS: In 1967 so many people wanted to come work with us, so, we decided to work with a school in Knightsbridge. The teachers were our top hairdressers. Some of them decided to go into teaching full time and with that we created very high standards. We’ve had a long line of extraordinarily influential and talented creative directors. One person could not have done this alone. The wonderful mixture of young people coming in with the passion and caring to learn and then teach is really what got this whole thing going. AML: Let’s talk about how you have and are influencing people through your philanthropic work and the Vidal Sassoon Foundation. VS: Recently, I came out of New Orleans and cut cloth. There was an astronomical change. Suddenly there was a meritocracy rather than an aristocracy giving the country a sense of urgency to move forward. It was the time of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Suddenly you found people of enormous talent who wanted to share that. There was a sense of humility where everyone just got on with their lives and their work. AML: What were your favorite looks you created and on whom? VS: The one that got the most attention was the Nancy Kwan bob. It was cut shorter in the back, layered and longer at the sides. From the point of view of pure artistry, it would have to be the five-point cut. This is the ultimate in geometry—every strand had to lay perfectly when the woman shook her head or shampooed it in the shower. I did the five-point cut on Grace Coddington, now a top editor at Vogue in New York, when she was about 14 years old. the 21st house had been built [through the Hairdressers Unlocking Hope Program] and it was all done by hairdressers. After Katrina, my wife Ronnie and I went down and built two houses. I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting if we could get this over to the craft? I invited Mary Rector [of behindthechair.com] and said why don’t we get the craft involved in helping to rebuild? So, we started Hairdressers Unlocking Hope. What was exciting is that young kids were sending in $50 dollars or whatever they could afford. I once asked my mother, “what was the worst time in your life?” She said, “when you were three and your father left and we got evicted.” We went to my aunt’s home and lived there for two years until it became impossible. At five, my mother had to put my brother and me into an orphanage. When I look at New Orleans and see how many people are homeless, it brings me back to my early days. I continue to ask myself, how can one of the richest countries in the world not look after one of its greatest cities? We are number one in innovation and technology but when it comes to looking after our own, we fall short. And I think we should talk about it. I’ve always believed whatever you put into a purpose comes out in a final analysis. I believe this is what will happen with our project in New Orleans. It was 26 years ago a man named Yehuda Bauer, a professor at Hebrew University in Israel who was born in Prague and escaped the Nazis, approached me and asked, ‘how would you feel about opening a center for the study of anti-Semitism and other related bigotries?’ After the Holocaust, in 1948, I was fighting Facists, who had been let out of jail, in the streets of Britain with the 43 Group. Then an opportunity came for me to join the Israeli Army. I was 20 years old. Being Jewish, I knew I was lucky to be in London during the war and I know that 20 miles of water saved me and 350,000 people in Britian from going up a chimney. So when Professor Bauer came and asked me to open the center, we did, because hate, like love, is an important part of the way we human beings are. [In 1982 Sassoon founded the Vidal Sassoon International Center for Anti-Semitism.] Now, 60 percent of the people who come to the seminars in Israel, Europe and America are not Jewish—they are just caring people who realize the tragedy of the human being. 34 DECEMBER 2008 www.modernsalon.com http://www.behindthechair.com http://www.behindthechair.com 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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