| Performance Notes | "Vidal Sassoon's 'hairdressing teach-in' at the Albert Hall was described by Annabel Dilke in a BBC External Services talk: 'The Albert Hall was packed with some 3,000 eager disciples of the master, from as far away as Japan and Australia. All seemed exceptionally well coiffed themselves, both men and women, and many were recoding the occassion for posterity on a variety of photographic equipment. Vidal Sassoon 'gave up the chair', as he would put it, some seven years ago. But, though no longer wielding the scissors himself, he was much in evidence today, in a natty three-piece pale grey suit: commenting on the work of his artistic team - who snipped busily away on stage; gallantly ushering models on and off: even signing the odd autograph. Clearly, his teach-ins are a success. This is the second year they have been held, and next year, instead of the Royal Albert Hall, the venue will be at the QE2.
'We began with a slide-show of Vidal's styles over the years many of them greeted by the audience with a spontaneous burst of applause. "Do you remember the Geometric?" Vidal asked. "The Isadora? The Botticelli? The Wedge and the Shag?" This latter style, Vidal explained, had been inspired by a shaving brush he had once seen in the window of a Piccadilly store.' (The 'Shag' has been renamed the 'Veil'.) 'Mr Vidal said: "We use hair as material to cut shapes into." He added: "The second most important man in a woman's life is her hairdresser."
'Eight models dressed in shiny-grey boiler-suits and boots then undulated their way on to the stage to the accompaniment of pop music. We were being privileged to see the very latest in Vidal Sassoon styles. Colour plays a dominent part - deep crimson, bright orange, platinum blonde. Each style was greeted with a chorus of whistles and applause. "Would anyone like to come up and run their fingers through it? "Vidal asked the audience. And several - women as well as men - gratefully and reverentially availed themselves to the offer.
'Vidal's "artistic team", as he referred to them, then took up their positions on stage, each one with a freshly shampooed model girl and a pair of scissors. The huge audience saw each snip of the scissors in close-up on closed circuit television positioned throughout the huge concert hall. "Notice the way Roy is pulling the hair up towards him before he graduates it," Vidal's artistic director tod us. "Notice the way he's keeping his square angles."
'I stumbled out of the Albert Hall into the bitter weather.' concluded Miss Dilke - sadly admitting that 'judging by the Londoners I passed in the street there was no evidence whatsoever of what Vidal had described as the "revolutionary effect" of the geometric perm...'"
(The Listener, 12 February 1976) |