My career started at Vidal Sassoon’s salon in London in 1964. The Manager was Joshua Galvin and Robert Edell was the main teacher. Some of the many stylists that year where Paul Michel, Rodger Thompson, Christopher Brooker, Laurence Falk, Jason Peller, Richard Stein, Ricky Burns, Tony Beckerman, Morise Tidy. Philip Rodgers was a Vaderer . ( A vaderer is someone who watches . It’s a word that comes from the theatre as was so many other words we used in the hair industry at the time. Vidi is look in Latin )

Colour artists where Annie Humphries and ( the other colourist ?)

I remember that their were three girls on the reception and that the telephone never stopped ringing for appointments from the morning until the evening. Most days you could not walk thru the reception area and on Saturdays, half working day (but I never got out until about 4 o’clock. ) their was a queue outside the shop as their where too many people inside. The place was “busting at the seems”. Jan was the receptionist and Jenny (bird) too. The most beautiful girl in the world!

In 1966 I was Christopher bookers Junior and so when Vidal asked him to go and manage the new Sloan street salon I went too. This shop did as well as the other and was a success too. At this time Gerard Austin became the managing Director and I saw Steven Way join the company, again. I was his Junior for 3 months after that. Steven was the nicest person and could tell a story that lasted for hours only to finish off that he was pulling your leg. To the clients delight. Heinz Shumi, Graham Breakwell, Joined the company at this time.

1967 saw Vidal Sassoon open his famous SCHOOL in Knightsbridge. I was present their on the first day with David Miller and two others under the tutorage of Jason Peller and Robert Edell. I started teaching as their where too many students coming. I used to work Saturdays in the 101, New Bond street salon and worked alongside those famous stylists. The first pupils we got where single students from the English provinces and one person who came from Denmark. He was so taken, about Sassoon cutting that he went home and got a salon but the Danish people where not ready for this type of cut yet and so he did not do well and closed shop. At this time I remember Fumio Kawashima, Terri Minami, Heinz Shumi, Dwight Miller, Trevor Sorbie, David Marshal, Daryl Benson, Fernando Romeros, Franco Scarpa, Bruno Mascolo, Herta Keller, Tony and Ozzi Rizzo, (today sanrizz) Who passed bye this school.

Some of the people from around the world that came their included. Sture of Copenhagen, Helmerson and Gun Brit too. From Sweden a company called Katsy sent over dozens of hairdressers who after leaving our school went back to Sweden and changed the world of hairdressing their. So we started with about 4 students and some old age pensioners for models for free haircuts , to having 30 students a week and hundreds of models who came and paid for the privilege of having their hair cut from the future top hairdressers of the world. The haircut at this time was the Isadora cut. Idea from Rodger Thompson who had already don the Mouche. Then in 1969 he decided to LAYER the Isadora. That was the beginning of the end. The world went mad and copied it. So this was the way forward with everyone finally saying good by to the fifties. The Boutique BIBA in London was doing a great trade.

1969 I and Caroline Hays, Kevin Maling, and Jason Peller, went to Davies Mews as the school was too small for all the people that wanted to learn the “new” techniques. This place took a lot more people and I looked after the ones that came for a one week course. I had a course every week with students coming from Germany, Norway, U.S.A. Italy, Singapore, Malaysia, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Japan, Belgium, Finland, Often they would arrive in groups. Especially the ones that came from Germany. Organised by some person from Cologne. Who went on to becoming himself one of the most famous hairdressing companies in Germany. It seems that he learned more from watching than the others did by working, as he did the translations. He got the philosophy of the work. Not just the technique.

This too was the time that Sassoons went around the world doing shows and demonstrations. I remember Haich, Herta, Henry Able and his lovely wife Sally, Christopher, Joshua Galvin……..all working away showing the new work to thousands of people. All enthusiastic about the styles proposed for that year.

In 1972 I remember a staff meeting where the stylists got together to do hair work and then everyone gathered together . What normally happened was that everyone would criticise each others work but knowing that yours would be criticised soon after, you tended to be very positive with your criticism. Howard Fugler did a lovely style that was a kind of short Isadora but after it was swept back was something soo new. It was worked on more in the days ahead and in 1973 a new style was born called the fire-fly. Something that transformed the world of hairdressing into a world of cutting. A new type of worker came about. One who wielded the scissor and not the comb. Pull down rather than built up. Trevor Sorbie did a version called the Wedge, that helped him to the success that he rightfully deserves. A little time later I remember Daryl Benson ( a wonderful person) who’s wife was working in the perming department. He wanted her to work on a new idea of his. It was going to be called the Botticelli. It was the Isadora with a stack perm and graduated. So after this date the stake perm was seen all over the world. So after the Bob, the Asymmetric and then the Graduated Bob then the five points cut then the Greek goddess and the Mouche then the Clara Bow and the Breeze, Havington, VS, Curly VS. Came the stack perm. An innovative look that was to see itself hanging on the walls of every hairdressing school in the world. I remember a friend of mine called Siv from Stockholm she had this look and when she got home to Stockholm she could not walk down the road without everyone turning to look at her. She worked with Janik Sandsrom who was head of one of the biggest hair salons ever. At its height it had 120 hairdressers working in shifts from 8am to 8 pm. No apprentices just professional hairdressers that did everything from Cut to colour to perm to washing the hair. Klipoteket is its name. Thousands of people walked in to it with long hair and out of it with anything you could wish for. Bying products on the way out. A wonderful staff.

This takes us to 1974. I opened the Vidal Sassoon Academy. I thought that the word Academy was the right word as the original academy was a garden where people went to talk about ideas. I did not mean it to be offensive to Socrates, Who I think is one of the leading lights the world has ever known. So..the Idea was that you discussed fashion, style, what beauty is, and what’s beauty got to do with fashions? and why do we see models as beautiful when they look anorexic? What is good looking in a face. What is the best shape of a face? Is a large nose ugly or beautiful? Is it better to have personality than beauty? That kind of thing! Well, the upshot of this was PUNK. It was fresh and it had Ideas. It was to do with a chap called Renato Brunas. He had come up with a product that coloured the hair anything you wanted it to do. But of course you had to bleach it first. But we at the academy took it on board and soon had a one day colouring course within the cutting course. It was on the Thursdays. It was a fantastic success and it was fun fun fun. On Friday afternoon we would have a top stylist from the salon. Renato was often here on Friday evenings taking to the hairdressers from around the world and we always had his products at hand and enjoyed using them. (Renato Brunas is instrumental in the making of so many famous hairdressers of today. I remember Fumio Kawashima doing the hair of Siouxiesue and I think the Banshies used to sit and wait for her. She came that day wearing pyjamas and had her hair coloured the same colours as the pyjamas. It was fun. This was a freeing up time. Freeing from conventions that would soon be its own convention, as it always has don in the past. At this time the hair was cut very short and spiky. I have a friend called Flint Wincop who was instrumental in the hair fashion at the time and he told me that he was called the Bader-Mainhoff of the hairdressing world and if you see the style today you would not think that it would look bad on your daughters or your wife. Its just short and spiky. Actually a style that allows the women to enjoy life without constraints (well…maybe a little gell.) Flint loved art (and is a painter himself) and he was particularly looking at the impressionists paintings and how we could work with the ideas into hair design. He came up with the idea to colour the hair lighter where you should be looking at it, and darker where you should not. It was the beginning of another new trend that has taken 20 years to mature and today is the driving force of the hair industry. Who dos not put a touch of light colour here and darker their to create an effect? Well you do if you are doing shows and seminars to hairdressers! The Academy did very well under the wing of Thomas Yurdie. He was the Managing director as Vidal was living in the United States by this time. It was doing so well that He decided to open another Academy in Knightsbridge very close to Harrods department store. It was the great year of 1976. I stayed the year but it was not easy as we had one year of Japanese. They had booked the whole year more or less. I could not stand to teach just Japanese people all year so I handed in my resignation. Japanise people are ok but when you are teaching you have to make every one happy. Its not like salon work. Their you have to make your customers happy but in a school like the Academy you had to make the models happy too. So most of the japanise students did not speak English and so it was difficult. Or in Japanese “Musakashi”

So… 1977 After a great good-bye party with my staff, the door firmly closed behind me from Sassons .( By this time the important people from Sassons had already left for the U.S.A). I had only one direction to go. Japan. I went their with a company called Doctor Duralle. It was a product company that had curative products and so I like that idea. They gave me work for twelve weeks. I went to Tokyo to start and met my “friends” Fumio Kawashima. I think it was he who got me the job, and had Terri Minami who had a company called Super cuts (it dos not sound too good in Italian.) As my mentor. He was a great person. Had a flat in Omotesando. What a great place! I stayed with him and his family. If I was in Tokyo. When I used to come home to his flat his daughter (about three years old) used to look at me and point her finger and say ugly devil in Japanese and go into her room crying. It was not welcoming, but that’s life. I went to every major Japanese town from Kyushu island to Hokkaido. I won’t list the towns as I was in most of them. But when you are working their dos not seem to be much of a difference between them. Pachinko is played all over. Where ever I went I was looked at . I did a show on the first day of the week and then had seminars in other towns all week consisting of twenty persons in the morning and afternoon sessions and another twenty in the evening. On the last day I did only the days and then travelled to the next meeting. It was exhausting but when I was working all the time it was pleasing to know that I was showing English style, and a very successful time it was too. It was so successful that I got another Job as soon as I finished that with a Mr. Imai who’s wife and son where personal friends of mine. I stayed for another eight weeks more. (In the future I will talk about this)

But I have to get on to coming back to London. I met up with Tony Rizzo and together we decided to go around the world and work. Like:- Have scissors. Will Travel! But more like Have knowledge. Will Travel ! Our first job was in the north of England but for some reason the company in their publicity called us vidal sasson art directors. Well the next thing you know is that we get a letter suing us if we don’t retract. I never even knew that the company had said this before I got the letter from sassoon’s lawyers. So after fourteen years, not even a phone call to find out what it was all about. I mean Christopher Brooker the managing director was a personal friend. So I woke up to another world. Annie Humphries and Rodger Rodgers never even tried to find out if it was a mistake. Which it was!

Hairdressers Journal, Kindly gave Tony Rizzo and myself a two page spread with our photos and the headlines workers of the world, and we really where. Our first job was in Turin for a person called Mr. Bolani. We arrived in Tony’s black MG. after working their we went to Varese where Tony had a friend who organised seminars and we did a few. I had a seminar with Gibian of Milan but could not make it as I was ill. Tony went on his own but Gibian did not know Tony so he was upset that I never came but after Tony had worked Gibian was very pleased with the way the day had progressed. We then went to Berlin. Berlin was a favourite place for us as this was 1978 and it was the capital of the world as far a fashion was concerned