SASSOON, Vidal

(b. 17 January 1928 in London, England), trend-setting hairstylist and entrepreneur who promoted the wash-and-go, easy-to-manage, "Sassoon bob" hair-style of the 1960s and whose hair-care products are used worldwide.

Sassoon was the second son of Nathan Sassoon, a carpet salesman, and Betty (Bellin) Sassoon, a homemaker. The family lived in London's working-class East End. When Sassoon was five years old, his father abandoned the family for another woman, and his now-impoverished mother placed her sons in an orphanage. When she remarried eight years later, her sons rejoined her and began attending public school. Poor at schoolwork, Sassoon dropped out when he was fourteen.

Inspired by a dream of her son styling her hair, his mother apprenticed Sassoon to a hairdresser, Adolf Cohen. For two years he cleaned the shop, shampooed hair, and practiced barbering. In another shop he shampooed and dressed the hair of war-prosperous prostitutes of London's Soho area. During the 1940s and 1950s, hairstyling was elaborate and labor-intensive, often featuring a permanent wave done with intricate wiring, with thin, aluminum curlers used in the process.

Realizing his thick Cockney accent prevented any advancement, Sassoon frequented London's West End theaters to learn better English; he also began taking elocution lessons. At night he attended meetings of antifascist and Zionist groups. In 1948 he joined the Palmach army group and fought in Israel's War of Independence. He returned to London and to hair styling and opened his first salon in a small, third-floor room on Bond Street. By 1954 Sassoon had opened another salon in a renovated, first-floor space he had designed himself. The salon featured an open floor plan with shampoo and cutting stations in plain view, rather than the traditional layout of individual stylists working in cubicles.

Also in 1954 Sassoon befriended couturier Mary Quant. "She cut clothes with a brilliant flair," Sassoon later wrote, "and I tried to match her style with hair." For the next several seasons, he styled Quant's hair and that of her models. Eventually, he began to specialize in a hairstyle that was short-cropped in the back (so that no fuzz would be caught in the collar) and longer at the sides, the hair falling forward with an upward flip at the cheeks.

The 1963 fashion season featured Quant's miniskirt sported by models wearing Sassoon's short, geometric crop, which the British press dubbed "the Sassoon bob." By 1964 Britain's Queen and France's Elle fashion magazines had adopted this hairstyle. That year Sassoon was featured at the Intercoiffure convention in New York City and fell in love with the United States. "I love it," he told the New York Times. "It switches me on."

In 1965 Sassoon opened a salon in New York City's posh Charles of the Ritz makeup studio. Within hours of its opening, appointments were booked months in advance. Like his London shops, the New York salon employed young, energetic stylists (the average age was twenty-two) working in an open floor plan layout. Sassoon's clients, the with-it "mod" set, would be photographed at discothèques such as Ondine and Arthur. Within a year Vogue and Harper's Bazaar featured articles on the jet-setting Sassoon, who now commuted between swinging London and New York.

Because of his international fame Sassoon was initially allowed to operate without a New York cosmetology license, but he was finally required to take the certification exam in 1966. With much publicity, he refused to do so, insisting that the required techniques were outmoded. In interviews and talk shows he promoted "Sassoon's Philosophy: Short Is Good." With Sassoon barred from cutting hair himself, his New York salon began to lose business even as he became nationally known by publicizing his noncertification. Business prospered again, however, when he submitted to taking the exam and passed.

In 1965 Sassoon featured squared curls achieved by winding hair on wooden blocks. For the 1966 season he reversed this style, with a long, asymmetrical bob cut covering one eye in the manner of actress Veronica Lake's peek-a-boo style of the 1940s. The following year he returned to a short look featuring "the curly geometric" perm, which was complemented by Charles of the Ritz makeup with a bright red, cupid's-bow mouth, reminiscent of the 1920s flapper style of actress-vamp Clara Bow.

For Mia Farrow's hairstyles in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968), Sassoon created two influential and startlingly different looks. There was a long hairpiece for early scenes when Farrow's naive character falls in with a witch's coven. Then, while pregnant with the devil's child, Farrow's character suddenly sports an extremely short pixie cut. Typically for Sassoon, he fashioned the gamine haircut with much publicity. In front of an audience of 40 fashion stylists, 110 photographers, and 5 television crews, Farrow's hair-as-spectacle became a major media event.

That same year Sassoon featured a "little boy" cut, longer at the sides and nape of the neck, with a short and shaggy top. Another highly influential hairstyle was the "Greek Goddess," with hair tightly permed on top and cropped very short at the back.

Sassoon's business began to attract young men who visited the salon after hours, and Sassoon believed that these new clients needed a separate venue for daytime cuttings. Parting with Charles of the Ritz in 1968, Sassoon opened two salons, one for women on Madison Avenue and another for men in the chic department store Bonwit Teller.

By the late 1960s, Sassoon had opened a chain of salons in the United States and in Europe. To train his stylists, he opened the Vidal Sassoon Academy, first in New York, then later in London and in San Francisco. The training program was complemented by the development of hair products such as shampoos and conditioners, which initially were sold exclusively at his saloons. Later the hair products were manufactured, and then owned, by the Procter and Gamble Company.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Sassoon actively promoted his hair care products on talk shows and commercials ("If you don't look good, we don't look good.") Eventually, his products included styling combs and brushes, curling irons, and a pioneering, hand-held, portable plastic hairdryer for use at home or when traveling. Also during this time, he ventured, with moderate success, into designer jeans and a radio talk show.

Sassoon became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1972. Sas-soon and his first wife, the actress Beverly Adams, had four children. In 1975 Sassoon and Adams, along with the former Vogue editor Camille Duhé, wrote a best-selling beauty and natural health book, A Year of Beauty and Health. After divorcing Adams, Sassoon married the interior designer Rhonda Holbrook.

Sassoon's career as hairstylist and entrepreneur featured the 1960s "mod" look of a short and geometric bob style with low maintenance. He pioneered the open salon layouts and salon venues for men that are now industry standards. He was the first hair stylist who both created and produced complete hair care product lines used internationally.

Sassoon's autobiography is Sorry I Kept You Waiting, Madam (1968). Diane Fishman and Marcia Powell, Vidal Sassoon: Fifty Years Ahead (1993), a retrospective catalog, details his career and influence on the field of hairdressing. See also Angela Taylor,"Coiffeur 'Switched On' in New York," New York Times (16 Mar. 1964).

Patrick S. Smith