LOS ANGELES (AP) — 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.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — 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.”