WHENEVER I’m asked to list my hobbies, Mr F always says I should put ‘hair’ at the top of the list.
He’s right; a fascination with styles, colours and everything hair-themed has consumed me for years, rather like a train spotter’s addiction to railways or a stamp collector’s fascination with … err … stamps.
Consequently I was sorry to hear that the great innovator Vidal Sassoon – the James Watt of the hair world – died last month.
Over the years I’ve had a bonce of many colours, have sported very short hair, long straight tresses, been frizzed, razor cut and rollered, and more recently blow-dried and ironed.
My mother used to go to the hairdresser once a week for a shampoo and set and always looked well-groomed with the minimum of fuss.
These days my styles sound like the work of a dentist on bonfire night: regular root treatment accompanied by highlights and flashes.
Hairstyles have often been defined by celebrities of different eras: I’ve succumbed to the Dusty Springfield, the Lisa Minnelli ‘Cabaret’ cut, and I even once dallied with a ‘Princess Di’, the one with the fringe and flicky bits. Oh dear.
But it was the Mary Quant-type bobs that I’ve loved best, thanks to that creative genius, Sassoon. They became the image for fashion leaders Biba, Ossie Clarke and Zandra Rhodes and eventually tiny model Twiggy defined the look. (Unfortunately the skinniness caught on too.)
I even went to Sassoon’s New Bond Street salon in the early 1980s from where I emerged with my hair all shiny, short, sleek and lopsided. I loved it.
Being on the recent world cruise for three and a half months meant getting my roots done on the ship and, amusingly, when we got to Singapore, an extra order of red dye had to be taken on board for me.
What was really great was sitting in the chair, looking out at the ocean as we sailed to the next country.
When we were in the Red Sea (appropriately) and on pirate alert, I just prayed we wouldn’t be attacked while I still had rusty gunge covering my head.
