“In 1973 I was a huge David Bowie fan and a friend asked me
to colour his hair in exactly the same orange as Bowie had on the cover of his album Aladdin Sane. I went to the chemists, bought the dye and, much to the horror of the boy’s mother, I coloured his hair. I remember thinking as I did it, ’This is fun, I think I’ll do this when I leave school’.”
John subsequently enrolled in a local hairdressing college, studied for two years and, as he puts it, “anticipated working in a corner salon for the rest of my life. But I was pointed in the right direction and joined Sassoon.”
By 1977 John was based in Bond Street, London, being taught by Christian Gardiner – by incredible coincidence the man responsible for the orange hair of Aladdin Sane. | “I couldn’t believe it, I’d got into the industry because of that image and I was being taught by the man who had created it. It was too much to ask for, I was in awe!” After stints in Manchester and Munich John headed up the colour department in Leeds, where he worked with the art team until 1984 when he became Head of Colour in Toronto.
Twenty-two years later he’s in charge of Sassoon colour for the East Coast of North America, overseeing training, passing on his remarkable knowledge and developing new ideas with his team of colour technicians – as well as tending to his own clientele.
And why did he choose Vidal Sassoon all those years ago? “Sassoon had, and still has, a reputation for excellence that is always consistent, always reliable. Vidal turned the industry from fluff to precision and I still believe in that philosophy.” |
