The last time I checked at Amazon USA, my most treasured book sells at staggering $400!Everything we do in a salon, we owe a great deal to this man.
He sigle-handedly established modern haircutting.
"It took me nine years to get to the Five Point Cut", he used to say.
It's entirely based on three dimensional geometry, which was truly revolutionary.
As every hairstylist should know, the source of this philosophy came to him through his study of the Bauhaus.
Great thing about this book is, as far as I know, this is the only one that tried to explain these two artistic movement/methodology in a clear and lucid way to general public.
Starting from Sassoon's essay "My way to the Bauhaus", to a brief history of "The Bauhaus 1919 to 1933", "Vidal Sassoon and Modernism", and interviews with Tim Hartley, Annie Humphreys, Simon Ellis and Terence Donovan.
Another great thing about this book is, there is a plethora of styles created not just by Sassoon himself, but also, Roger Thompson, Christopher Brooker and others, with their own names credited.
Most of "Sassoon" styles we see on internet or in print are summarily credited with Vidal Sassoon the person, but that's not true. It's an egregious error or sloppy journalism that nobody seems to care these days.
At least, this confusion stems from the fact that "Vidal Sassoon" was the salon name as well.
This book pays due credit to the person who actually created a particular style shown.
That's a noble thing to do, and I really like that.
If you're in this industry, you should study the Bauhaus, its philosophy and method.
For example, if you're a stylist, you should know the theory of geometry by Wassily Kandinsky.
If you're a colourist, you should know the colour theory by Johannes Itten.
Both of them were teachers at the Bauhaus at some point.
Not only that, everybody should study history of art, design, and should practise drawing, painting and photography.
That will sharpen your sense of seeing, make you far much more creative, and will definitely change the way you cut hair in a salon.
Then, cutting hair will no longer be a job or a career.
It will become your 'lifestyle'.
"Mary Quant once remarked that I 'was the first hairdresser to cut hair as though it were a material.'
I like to hear this about my work because I believe it is really key to understanding the material properties of hair.
Hair is a material in motion.
As the body moves, beautifully cut hair will swing with its movement and become a sensual part of that movement.
A great cut will give hair life and bounce as opposed to making it stiff and rigid."
3 comments:
Never a truer word has been writen but I think we can thank Christopher Brooker for introducing the Bauhaus to Sassoons in 1978.
By the way. It was not sloppy journalism the reason that the photos never had credits. It was a Policy of the Sassoon management that they would NOT credit the artists.
Thank you very much for your insights. I really appreciate it. This one is really a great book for me, very inspiring.
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