Cutting-edge career of an icon

Vidal Sassoon, the hair stylist and fashion world pioneer who created a natural look in the 1960s and built a multi-million-dollar business on his name, spelled the end for the 1950s-era bouffant.

He died this week at the age of 84 following a long battle with leukaemia.

Sassoon was dubbed a pioneer for coming up with “wash and wear” looks — liberating many women from trips to the hairdresser.

He began marketing his name, styles, and cutting techniques in a worldwide line of salons, hair-cutting schools, and hair products.

Born in London on Jan 17, 1928, the son of a poor Turkish-Jewish carpet salesman, Sassoon spent eight of his early years in an orphanage after his father abandoned his family.

He quit school at 14, and his stepfather agreed to finance his apprenticeship as a hairdresser. “It was my mother’s idea,” he once said of his entry into hairstyling.

“Her feeling was that I didn’t have the intelligence to pick a trade myself.”

In 1948, after the partition of Palestine, Sassoon spent a year working on a kibbutz and fighting in the Israeli army.

He credited that year with giving him the direction and discipline needed to jump in to a career in hair cutting.

In 1950 he won his first hairdressing competition, and four years later opened his first shop in Bond St in London. He had decided if he could not change hair-dressing within a decade he would become an architect.

But soon, his salon was bursting with women looking for his signature styles. By 1963, he had created a short, angular cut recreating the “bob cut”.

At the time, Sassoon was creating his “wash and wear hair” when styling models for fashion designer Mary Quant. That association put him at the forefront of fashion. His styles also began attracting a male audience when The Beatles adopted Sassoon-inspired cuts.

He gained even greater fame with his hair style for Mia Farrow in 1967 film, Rosemary’s Baby, and the term “a Sassoon” became part of the fashion lexicon.

Sassoon married four times and had four children. His eldest daughter, Catya, died of an accidental overdose in 2002 aged 33.

Sassoon sold the rights to his name to Richardson-Vicks in 1983. At that time his hair products alone were netting Vidal Sassoon Inc about $113m a year.

Procter & Gamble acquired Richardson-Vicks in 1985, and continued making products using the Sassoon name.