We learned to put discipline in the haircuts by using actual geometry, actual architectural shapes and bone structure. The cut had to be perfect and layered beautifully, so that when a woman shook it, it just fell back in.
— Vidal Sassoon
Realizing our society as it is, without theology dogmatically telling us how we should react to it, and being humane toward that society, that is all that we're sure of.
I was born in 1928 and by 1931 the Depression was beginning to mount.
Like most ghetto kids I knew it was important to be 'somebody' so I became a good soccer player, because excelling at a sport seemed to make you special.
Capri on the Amalfi Coast in Italy is my ultimate holiday destination.
I'm a great jazz fan.
I was a bit of a rebel.
My mother left me for seven years in an orphanage.
Hairdressing in general hasn't been given the kudos it deserves. It's not recognised by enough people as a worthy craft.
If you get hold of a head of hair on somebody you've never seen before, cut beautiful shapes, cut beautiful architectural angles and she walks out looking so different - I think that's masterful.
There were so many pretty girls coming into the salon as clients, and others working in the salon. And I thought, 'Hmm. This is rather nice.'
I got a telegraph from my mother who said that my step-father had had a heart attack, come home and earn a living. So I went back to England and the only thing I knew to earn any cash was through hairdressing.
So I was shampooing at 14. But I've always thought that had I the opportunity for an education, I would have been an architect. There's no question about it.
Most people have excellent necks. Now they cover them with curtains, which is kind of ridiculous. But there are some beautiful necklines that you can cut into and create wonderful backs, as well as bone structure for the face.
You must always do what you feel is right.
It's okay saying sorry, but when you are drunk you say what you really feel.
From my point of view, there is a tremendous amount to be said for secular humanism.
Women were going back to work, they were assuming their own power. They didn't have time to sit under the dryer.
Hairdressers are a wonderful breed. You work one-on-one with another human being and the object is to make them feel so much better and to look at themselves with a twinkle in their eye.
To me hair dressing means shape. It's very important that the foundations should be right.
'The Pianist' is a movie I could watch over and over again.
When I was about 10 I ran away to see my father. He couldn't have cared less. He just took me back as soon as he could.
During the late '20s my father left us. My mother was in a complete hole with no money, and we were evicted.
Everything about morality and obligations I owe to football.
I just consider being one of the luckiest people in the sense that creativity came to me and it flowed.
If you don't look good, we don't look good.
It's hard to give advice. There are so many people, how do you give major advice to a group of people, it's very presumptuous.
My mother had a premonition and she felt that hairdressing would be very very good for me.
The essence is, what can we do next? And will it be good?
Bring out the eyes.
I was all about my thoughts, my work, my inspiration. I was always in hair.
I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.
I'll never forget one morning I walked in and I had a hell of a bruise - it had been a difficult night the night before - and a client said to me, 'Good God, Vidal, what happened to your face?' And I said, 'Oh, nothing, madam, I just fell over a hairpin.'
I came home after a year and although my profession was only hairdressing, I knew I could change it.
I kept thinking I would be spending my life up to my elbows in shampoo.
Mary Quant is my favourite fashion designer.
You never argued with my mother. You couldn't win.
Judaism is important to me from a tribal point of view.
My greatest regret is selling my company.
It was my mother's idea. Her feeling was that I didn't have the intelligence to pick a trade myself.
You either create something and you keep it a secret and you die with it, or you can benefit the craft.
For nine years I worked to change what was hairdressing then into a geometric art form with color, perm without setting which had never been done before.
A working woman could save a few shillings a week, and then every five weeks she'd come in and we'd cut her hair. She could shampoo it under the shower, swing it and dry it off or just let it dry by itself. It changed the lives of many young girls who'd never had the opportunity to be styled like that before.
I don't sort of sit in a chair and pompously feel proud of myself about all the things we might have accomplished.
Hair excited me. As the old ways - backcombing, rollers and rigidity - went out of the window, I started to feel the possibilities in front of my eyes.
If you have a sense of style and purpose and will you don't want to compromise.
