Man who freed ladies from the blow dry

Shweta Shiware meets celebrity hairstylist Vidal Sassoon, who single-handedly changed the way women wore their hair in the 1960s, at the London screening of a film about the accidental hairdresser who freed the female population with a pair of scissors and simple wrist movements

Before he came along, women wore their hair long, and set it at repeated salon sessions with odd-shaped curlers and cans of spray. A young Jewish hairdresser from London decided it was time to free women from bondage. With the introduction of the geometric 5-point haircut inspired by Bauhaus architecture, he revolutionised how women wore their hair in the 1960s, with simple wrist movements and an odd pair of scissors. His remarkable journey is the subject of a 1.5 hour long documentary, Vidal Sassoonu00a0-- The Movie, that premiered in the UK last Friday.

This, from a man who never aspired to be a hairdresser. It was his mother who had an epiphany about the young Sassoon take up the profession. "It was the last thing I wanted to be. But my mother was a persistent woman. She took me by the elbow and marched me into a salon in East London run by Adolf Cohen. I was dragged into hairdressing," said the 83 year-old at a screening of the film at London's Vue Cinema Westfield.

The accidental hairdresser, charming go-getter who liberated women from class and gender distinctions with the snip of a scissor 50 years ago, had an enviable career that spawned a global hairstyling empire. He mingled in the glamourous company of Hollywood actresses Mia Farrow, Twiggy and Grace Coddington. The film is an introduction to the poor Jewish boy who spent his time between age 5 and 11 in an orphanage after his father abandoned the family. His mother was too poor to raise him. He returned home when she was remarried.

During World War II, the teenage Sassoon did odd jobs including that of a glove cutter and bike messenger boy. At 17, he joined the 43 Group, a Jewish veterans' underground anti-fascist organisation dedicated to busting meetings held by Oswald Mosley's far-Right movement after World War II. "I'll never forget how one morning I walked into the salon and had a hell of a bruise. It had been a difficult night before, and a client said to me, 'Good God, Vidal, what happened to your face?' I said, 'Oh, nothing, madam, I just fell over a hairpin'," he recalls in the movie.

Sassoon also fought the Egyptians as part of the Israel Defence Forces in 1948. "It was the best year of my life. I found myself," he remembers in a determined tone. The raging streak of revolution found a new medium in hair. A quick learner, Sassoon picked up tricks at an apprenticeship with Adolf Cohen, amassing styling tips from famed hairdresser Raymond Bessone. "Cohen insisted his staff came in wearing ironed pants, shine on shoes and clean nails, and it was the middle of the war. While Raymond taught me how to style hair without using thinning devices or a razor."

Sassoon launched his own salon at the very posh Bond Street in 1954. His signature style was driven by gentlemanly etiquette and famed heterosexuality. The salon turned into a mecca of equality ufffd socialites, actresses and models sat beside secretaries, nurses and housewives ufffd all for a Vidal Sassoon haircut.

During this time, friend and filmmaker Roman Polanski was filming Rosemary's Baby. The director invited Sassoon to be part of a scene where actress Mia Farrow has an argument with her husband (played by Frank Sinatra), and decides to chop her long blonde hair into a boyish crop. To maximise publicity, the scene was filmed at Paramount Studios inside a makeshift boxing ring surrounded by photographers. It brought Sassoon sudden fame, and Farrow's pixie cut became the haircut of the decade.

A sparkling fashion moment unravels in the film in a scene between Mary Quant, inventor of the miniskirt, and Sassoon. Together, the pair reinvented and styled the 1960s, most believe. "I made the clothes, but you put the spin on the stop," says Quant to Sassoon. Before Grace Coddington took over as US Vogue's creative director, she made her modelling debut with Sassoon's remarkable 5-point cut in 1963.

Three years later, Sassoon trained his sights on America, and launched a salon at Madison Avenue in Manhattan. The heady rush of conquering powerful territory with a haircut and initiating a first-of-its-kind ambitious project (a range of haircare products) slowly melts into a series of disappointing personal tragedies, including a divorce from second wife Beverly, and the death of his daughter Catya from drug overdose in 2002.

The film is a mirror to an accomplished life. But Sassoon insists it's not without a few regrets. "Jackie Kennedy never came! I cut her sister Lee Radziwill's hair, hoping Mrs Kennedy will come someday. She never did."

The graduated angle cut
As the Sixties went on, the bobs got shorter, and the acute angle cut became big. Sassoon's good pal and fashion designer Mary Quant was later given the side-swept cropped look. Together the two went on to have an important impact on hairstyling in the '60s. Quant says to him in the movie: 'I made the clothes, but you put the top on".

The iconic pixie hairdo is back in vogue
Sassoon cuts Mia Farrow's pixie hairdo for her role in Rosemary's Baby (1968) in a publicity stunt orchestrated by the film's director Roman Polanski. The cut took place in a boxing ring in Hollywood with hoards of press and photographers in attendance. Farrow's hairstyle lives on even today as you can tell from Harry Potter
actress Emma Watson's crop.

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