HAIR

See Also: GROOMING

Barbers

See Also: FOLK TRADITIONS Urban Legends, Sweeney Todd; PHYSICIANS The Royal College of Surgeons of England; STREET FURNITURE Signs

The Barber-Surgeons' Company

Barbers performed minor operations. In 1540 the Guild of Surgeons was united with the Barbers Company to form the Barber-Surgeons' Company. Both trades involved the cutting of people, since barbers performed minor operations. In 1745 the two livelihoods bifurcated away from one another.

Location: Barber-Surgeons' Hall, Monkwell Square, Wood Street, EC2Y 5BL (orange, yellow)

See Also: CITY LIVERY COMPANIES

Website: https://barberscompany.org www.barber-surgeonshall.com

Birchin Lane

Birchin Lane may derive its name from birchin the Old English word for a barber.

Location: Birchin Lane, EC3V 9DJ (blue, yellow)

Sid Bogin

Sid Bogin (Baugin) (d.1988) - hairdresser to the Teds and celebrities. The styles that he may have imported included the D.A., the Tony Curtis, the Perry Como, and the pompadour.

Location: 67 Blythe Road, W14V 0HP

53 St Ann Villas, W11 4RU

Sweeney's

After becoming friendly with Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton had his hair permed at Sweeney's.

Location: 48 Beauchamp Place, SW3 1NX (purple, yellow)

Truefitt & Hill

Truefitt & Hill, Gentlemen's Hairdressers & Perfumers sells an impressive range of shaving items. The business was founded in 1805 by William Francis Truefitt at No. 2 Cross-Lane, Long Acre. Six years later he moved his premises to No. 40 Old Bond Street. He and his brother Peter became Wigmakers, by Royal Appointment to His Majesty, King George III . In 1911 Edwin Hill & Company opened a barbershop at No. 23 Old Bond Street. In 1935 the firm merged with Truefitt to form Truefitt & Hill. In 1994 the business moved to its present Location.

Upon retiring from Truefitt & Hill, the barber Michael Mr Christopher Christophides (1924-2007) was honoured with a reception that was held in the Milne Room of The Garrick Club. Upon dying, he received an obituary in The Times newspaper.

Location: 71 St James's Street, SW1A 1PH (orange, brown)

Website: www.truefittandhill.co.uk

Facial Hair

Crimean Protest

In the 1850s numerous men, of whom Charles Dickens was one, grew facial as a protest against what they regarded as having been the political and military mismanagement of the Crimean War. Their action was a sign of respect for those who were living the frontier life and contrasted with the clean-shaven, privileged chaps who engaged in nepotism.

Thomas Hobbes

Residents of fetter lane included: the philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), the author of the tract Leviathan (1651). Hobbes's great intellect concluded that a beard did not make a philosopher and so confined his facial hair to a small tuft under his lower lip.

Location: Fetter Lane, EC4A 1BX (orange, yellow)

Moustaches

In 1810 Baron Duram[??], a supposed Hungarian general, landed in London. He caused a sensation because he had a moustache. He was the son of a French nobleman. His deception was soon revealed.

Hercule Poirot

Agatha Christie Limited has trademarked Hercule Poirot's waxed moustache.

Website: www.agathachristie.com

Side Whiskers

In the early 19^thC some men started to wear side whiskers.

Hairdressing

Antenna

Simon Forbes (1949-2020) and Eleanor Heald set up Antenna in a former stable. He is credited with having invented hair extensions.

Location: 27a Kensington Church Street, W8 4LL (purple, pink)

Cuts

James Lebon and Steve Brooks established Cuts as a basement stall in Kensington Market. In the post-Punk era, it aligned itself to street fashion. The establishment proved to be the counterpoint to the likes of Vidal Sassoon and Trevor Sorbie. However, many of those who were to work there had first trained in such establishments. The people who worked there proved to be able to consistently create innovative hairstyles. The business's customers included the likes of Boy George, David Bowie, and Jean Paul Gaultier.

In 1985 Cuts moved from Kensington Market to premises that were next door to Bar Italia in Frith Street.

In 2014 a film that Sarah Lewis had made about Cuts was released. She had shot its footage over the course of nineteen years.

Location: 49-53 Kensington High Street, W8 5ED (purple, turquoise)

41 Frith Street, W1D 5LW (pink, grey)

Rose Evansky

Lorel Lerner was a German Jewess who fled her homeland. In 1939 she arrived in Britain, speaking only German and Yiddish. She managed to secure a job at Cohen's barbers in Whitechapel. In 1943 she married Albert Evansky, a fellow hairdresser. After the war the couple opened a salon in Hendon. In the mid-1950s they moved the business to North Audley Street in Mayfair. The assistants whom they employed who went on to further success included Leonard Lewis (1938-2016).

In Brook Street Mrs Evansky had noticed a barber used a hand dryer and brush to dry style men's hair. She wondered whether the technique could be applied to women's wet hair. A Mrs Hay was the first person upon whom she tried the technique. The blow-dry proved able to smooth the customer's curly hair. She and her husband had just spent 2000 on twenty new hood dryers. His response to what he saw was What do you fink we re goin to do wiv em? Frow em aaht? Clare Rendlesham, the fashion editor of Vogue, arrived for an appointment and saw the result. She rushed out and Mrs Evansky wondered What have I done? Ms Rendlesham reappeared, bring with her Barbara Griggs, a journalist on the Evening Standard newspaper. She became the second person to have one. It too worked. Evansky was a well-established and successful hairdresser, however, the ensuring media story made her a much more widely known figure.

Evansky had been raped a number of times during her childhood. She found herself unable to have sex with her husband. A number of customers were aware that she was coping with serious problems and sought to help her. There came a point when the marriage failed. She left the business.

Location: Evansky Hair Fashions, 17 North Audley Street, W1K 6WE (blue, turquoise)

Hair Lounge

Hair Lounge is a hair salon that is focussed on Black women's hair. Its clientele includes many of the U.K. s leading writers and performers and has developed an international reputation. The business was created by Charlotte Mensah. She was born in London into a Ghanaian family. However, she was sent to live with her maternal grandparents when only a few months old. At the age of eleven she returned to the city. The process of cultural adjustment was unpleasant. Among the things that she was ridiculed for by her schoolmates was having threaded hair. Just before her thirteenth birthday her mother died suddenly. Her adolescence was spent being shunted between relatives and living in a hostel. One of her memories of intimacy with her mother had been her mother doing her hair. When seventeen she was hired to work in Splinters, a Black hair salon in Mayfair. There she saw prominent Black people in British and English-speaking life. She determined to create her own similar business. Hair Lounge and a range of branded products was the result.

Location: 347 Portobello Road, W10 5SA (blue, turquoise)

Splinters, 98 Crawford Street, W1H 2HL (orange, purple)

Website: www.charlottemensah.com

Leonard of Mayfair

Leonard Lewis (1938-2016) was born an unwanted child. His mother, while pregnant with him, had tried to abort him by taking a poison. It did not have the effect she had hoped for but it did render her blind. He was raised on the White City council estate. His father worked for a car auction house that was in Putney and knew a number of gangland figures such as Jack Spot Comer and Billy Hill. After leaving school worked as a market barrow boy and then with his father. Lewis would occasionally travel to the West End to watch a movie. One day he went to see the French film An Artist With Ladies which was about a sheep shearer who becomes France's leading hairdresser. The youth concluded that what he saw - in at least the film's later portion - was what he wanted. The Kray twins bought him a copy of the Hairdressers Journal. He used his savings to become an apprentice for Rose Evansky (n e Rosel Lerner) (1922-2016) in her Mayfair salon. Soon he and another apprentice, Nigel Davies (later Justin de Villeneuve) - also a former barrow boy - moved to work for Vidal Sassoon. Within a year he had learned the Vidal way . He left and opened his own salon, Leonard of Mayfair, in a four-storey townhouse on Upper Grosvenor Street. The business soon proved to be a success. He took to socialising in glamorous circles.

He created Jackie Kennedy's bob. He persuaded her that her husband should stop using hair dye so that he should look more presidential. He persuaded Frank Sinatra to switch from hair weaves to using a wig. He primped Barry Manilow

Leading hairdressers who trained with Lewis included John Frieda, the colourist Daniel Galvin, Keith Wainwright, John Isaacs, Leslie Russell, and Nicky Clarke. He had a tendency to push them but took real delight when they proved to be successful.

The sixteen-year-old Leslie Twigs Hornby was working as a Saturday girl at the Mayfair salon. Lewis appreciated she might be a suitable person to sport a look that he and Galvin had been developing from an Eton crop. One day he cut her hair into an elfin, streaky blond crop. Photographs were taken. These were seen by the Daily Express fashion journalist Deirdre McSharry. A few weeks later the newspaper published an article that declared Hornby to be the face of 66 . She soon became an internationally known model. Lewis's salon became high fashionable.

Lewis cut and dyed David Bowie's hair during his Ziggy Stardust phase. Bob Marley had his dreadlocks undone, washed, and trimmed. The artists with whom he socialised included: Francis Bacon, Peter Blake, and David Hockney. He did work on some of the Hammer House of Horror films. Stanley Kubrick employed him on both 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and A Clockwork Orange (1971). When they were making Barry Lyndon (1975) Lewis and each of the ornate wigs had its own first-class seat on the flight from London to Dublin.

There was an occasion when some decorators were working in the salon forget to leave a Wet Paint by a cupboard that they had just painted. The actress Joan Collins came for an appointment. Her mink fur coat was hung by the cupboard and consequently one of its arms became covered in paint. When Lewis saw what had happened he quickly he used a comb and scissors to cut off the fur ends that were coated. He then swung the garment around and repeated the exercise on the other arm to be sure that they matched. The actress left the salon oblivious to what had occurred.

In 1987 his wife divorced him after he had had an affair with the American movie actress Darryl Hannah. His life became troubled by alcohol, bulimia, and epilepsy. The following he suffered a brain tumour and was unable to work for two years. By the mid-1990s he was living on social security on the White City estate. He retained a Rolex for his heady days. One day he was mugged and it was stolen. The police officer who interviewed him about the matter inquired Are you sure it was genuine, sir? Some of these copies can be very good.

Location: 6 Upper Grosvenor Street, W1K 2LJ (orange, pink)

'Allan' McKeown

(John) 'Allan' McKeown (1946-2013) attended Beal Grammar School in Ilford but opted to leave early and become a trainee in Vidal Sassoon's Bond Street salon. There was already a John in the salon so he was dubbed Allan. In 1966 he opened his own salon which swiftly proved to be fashionable. He developed contacts with the film industry and worked as a hair stylist on movies such as If... (1968) and Get Carter (1971). He gained further contacts through dealing with the advertising industry. In 1969 he started working as a commercials producer for the James Garrett agency.

In 1979, with the comedy writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, McKeown set up Witzend, which flourished as one of the first independent television production companies. The company's shows included the Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran-written Shine On Harvey Moon (1982-5) and the Clement and La Frenais-penned Auf Wiedersehn Pet (1983-6), both of which were about working-class life in tough economic times, their humour arose from the craft with which the characters were created and realised. In 1986 Witzend bought SelectTV, which subsequently became the first production company to list. In 1996 it was bought by Pearson for 51m.

In 1983 McKeown married the very versatile performer Tracey Ullman. The Tracey Ullman Show (1987-90) aired on Fox in the United States and made her well-known there. The programme spawned The Simpsons.

Location: 3 Derby Street, W1J 7AB (blue, purple)

Smile

Smile may have been London's first unisex hairdressers. The business was credited on Roxy Music (1972), Roxy Music's first album.

Mr Teasy-Weasy

Raymond Mr Teasy-Weasy Bessone had a salon in Knightsbridge.

Toni & Guy

The five Mascolo brothers were born in Scafati, a town to the south of Naples. In 1957 their father Franco Mascolo took the decision to work in Britain and moved the family there. He worked first in the Viccari's salon in Mayfair and then Renato's in Dover Street. His eldest son (Giuseppe) Toni (1942-2017) worked as a stylist with him before going to work in a Westminster salon. Franco's wife Maria died in 1962. He was so distraught that he was unable to work. Toni became the family's principal breadwinner. Their brother Gaetano ( Guy ) was working in a salon on Clapham Park Road. In 1963 he was offered an opportunity to acquire it which he took. The Mascolo's rebranded it as Toni & Guy. The brothers were pioneers of the unisex salon. In 1974 they acquired premises in Davies Street, Mayfair. Their second upmarket salon was on Sloane Square. They portrayed themselves as innovators and launched the TIGI hair products brand in 1979. The three younger Mascolo brothers - Bruno, Andrea, and Anthony - joined the business in various capacities. Toni concentrated on the managerial side of the business. However, he continued to do a five-hour shift in the company's Sloane Square salon before going to watch Chelsea F.C. play in the afternoon. In 1984 the Toni & Guy academy was established to train stylists. Toni, while working in the United States, noted how franchising enabled food businesses to have numerous outlets. In 1988 the first franchised Toni & Guy salon opened in Brighton. The franchises tended to be acquired by people who had trained in the academy. Over the following thirty years almost 500 opened around the world. In 2002 the American Toni & Guy operations and the TIGI brand became separate businesses that were owned by three of the brothers.

Toni established the Caff Fratelli coffee shop chain.

Hairstyle

The Society for The Prevention of Cruelty To Long-Haired Men

In 1964, in order to try to generate publicity for himself, David Bowie claimed to have set up The Society for The Prevention of Cruelty To Long-Haired Men.

Upward

Raine, Countess Spencer's (1929-2016) hair had a hairstyle that was nearly vertical. This was because she believed it made her look thinner.

David Backhouse 2024