Read all about it!
If like us, you can’t wait for the Vidal Sassoon The Movie to be released in Spring 2011, don’t fret as we’re delighted to announce that the life and career of style icon Vidal Sassoon is available for your reading pleasure from today. Vidal: The Autobiography (published by Pan Macmillan) is filled with warm memories, and is as rich in detail as you would hope, full of surprising and often moving stories from his early life to his rise to global fame. I haven’t felt this inspired and moved by a book in years, and panicked slightly when I got to the final chapter – I didn’t want this icon’s heartfelt stories to end! If there is one thing you do today, make sure you get your hands on a copy – here’s an extract to whet your appetite…
I was often at Vogue Studios, and one day I was called to do a session with David Bailey and a new model. Bailey, with his extraordinary pictures of Jean Shrimpton, was the new dashing young blade of the photography world and he had an outrageous sense of humour. I loved working with him. The feeling was mutual, though you would not have thought so if you had overheard some of our verbal battles.
I turned up at the appointed hour and Bailey was nowhere to be seen. I walked through the studio and noticed a youngish-looking girl sitting agitated in the rafters. She had tears streaming down her face and I asked, ‘What are you doing up there?’
‘David Bailey put me up here,’ she answered nervously.
I said, ‘You’ve been crying, and he can’t photograph you like that, so come down and have your makeup retouched.’ I helped her down and asked her name.
‘Twiggy,’ she said quietly.
Moments later, David stormed into the studio. ‘Twiggy, what are you doing down here? I put you up there!’
‘Don’t be frightened of Bailey,’ I said, winking at her. ‘He likes having fun with people.’ Twiggy was a client of Leonard’s, so there wasn’t very much for me to do hairdressing-wise. He had cut a beautiful shape less than a month before. I literally just had to cut her fringe and clean up the neckline a bit. Her makeup was redone, and Bailey did a superb shoot. I don’t think any of us realized at that moment that Twiggy would become one of the biggest names in fashion. Boy, did she make her mark. In fact, at one time, nobody was bigger – not only in Britain, but globally. With all her fame, she never lost her originality or charm, and still recounts the story of how we met much more dramatically than I do.
Extract from Vidal: The Autobiography by Vidal Sassoon, published by Pan Macmillan, available from 3 September at £20 from all good book stores or online from Amazon.co.uk