As I work on the film and book of Vidal Sassoon, one of the more interesting parallels to our current economic climate (which looks to be the worst recession of the last fifty years) is that he was born into the Great Depression of 1928. He spent six years of his childhood in an orphanage, lived through World War Two, and volunteered for the Israeli army when they were still fighting the Palestinians. Despite or because of this, Vidal became the greatest hairdressing icon of all time. To me, and perhaps to you, it’s both inspiring and comforting to realize that he survived and prospered during some of the toughest times in the last century.
The overriding intention for this project is to share his story and inspire young hairdressers (as well as not-so-young hairdressers) to realize how much is possible in this great field of work. The film project started when I was having lunch with Vidal’s son Elan in Miami. We were talking about what we could do for his 80th Birthday (which was fifteen months away at the time). It’s rather typical for me that project’s still not finished and he’s 81; more a product of meticulousness than procrastination, I’m happy to say. As I became more familiar with his story and spent more time with him, I also realized how fantastically privileged I was to be entrusted with documenting his life. Beyond the obvious, there are so many less apparent details about his life, his motivations, and his struggles, which all became part of the huge melting pot of information commonly associated with a subject worthy of a film and book. I had never really thought of this before I started working on the film, but wonderful things happen when you love what you do, and it feels somehow therapeutic to become more interested and fascinated by what you’re doing.
As some of you know, I attempt to be somewhat of a Buddhist, and one of the most important foundations of Buddhism is helping others. When you become focused on someone else’s life, it’s amazing how much better you feel about your own. At the time of writing, I’m here in New York for a week, having stopped in Paris for one day to work on the book with my good friend Steve Hiett, a legendary graphic designer and photographer. Our small team in New York spent the rest of the week watching, discussing, editing, and occasionally arguing about the film. It feels like you’re giving birth to an elephant sometimes–not always comfortable. One minute I’m thinking that this is never going to work, I’m wasting time and money, and what to do? Five minutes later, everything changes and the way forward seems like some sort of magical jigsaw puzzle, almost like a digital matrix, where all the tiny bits start falling into place. You’re not sure if you actually did anything, or were lucky enough to do nothing and cause it to change its form into something incredibly exciting. It’s a great challenge to find a new way of presenting a subject who’s incredibly famous, whose works and photographs have been shown a great many times.
