Liberator of ladies’ hair

Liberator of ladies’ hair, Vidal Sassoon, dies at 84

 Thursday, May 10, 2012 Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — Vidal Sassoon used his hairstyling shears to free women from beehives and hot rollers and give them wash-and-wear cuts that made him an international name in hair care.

When he came on the scene in the 1950s, hair was high and heavy — typically curled, teased, piled and shellacked into place. Then came the 1960s, and Sassoon’s creative cuts, which required little styling and fell into place perfectly every time, fit right in with the fledgling women’s liberation movement.

“His timing was perfect: As women’s hair was liberated, so were their lives,” Allure magazine Editor-in-Chief Linda Wells told The Associated Press in a written statement. “Sassoon was one of the original feminists.”

Sassoon was at his home in Los Angeles with his family when he died Wednesday at age 84, police spokesman Kevin Maiberger said. Maiberger said police were summoned to the home but found that Sassoon had died of natural causes, and authorities wouldn’t investigate further.

His exact cause of death was unclear, but publicist Mark Sejvar said Sassoon had leukemia for several years.

“Vidal Sassoon was the most famous hairstylist in the history of the world,” said John Paul DeJoria, a close friend of Sassoon and CEO of John Paul Mitchell Systems, a company he co-founded with the late Paul Mitchell, a Sassoon protege. “Good hairstylists never die. Vidal Sassoon and Paul Mitchell will always live on.”

DeJoria said Sassoon had been scheduled to sit at his table for a fundraiser Monday night but called to cancel, saying “his body was feeling just a little bit too tired and he would be there in spirit.”

Sassoon opened his first salon in his native London in 1954 but said he didn’t perfect his cut-is-everything approach until the mid-’60s. Once the wash-and-wear concept hit, though, it hit big, and many women retired their curlers for good.

His shaped cuts were an integral part of the “look” of Mary Quant, the superstar British fashion designer who popularized the miniskirt.

“My idea was to cut shape into the hair, to use it like fabric and take away everything that was superfluous,” Sassoon said in 1993 in the Los Angeles Times, which first reported his death. “Women were going back to work, they were assuming their own power. They didn’t have time to sit under the dryer anymore.”

His wash-and-wear styles included the bob, the Five-Point cut and the “Greek Goddess,” a short, tousled perm — inspired by the “Afro-marvelous-looking women” he said he saw in New York’s Harlem.

Paul Mitchell’s son Angus Mitchell, co-owner of John Paul Mitchell systems and a prominent hairstylist in his own right, said Sassoon’s simple-but-dynamic system forever changed the business because it could be replicated anywhere.