Desert Island Discs: Archive 2011-2015 - Vidal Sassoon

Kirsty Young's castaway is the veteran hairdresser Vidal Sassoon.

He developed the architecturally precise bobs and cropped styles that were a defining look of the 1960s. Mary Quant, Mia Farrow and Twiggy were among the glamorous clients who came to his salons in London and Beverly Hills.

His scissors and ambition lifted him out of the grinding poverty of his childhood - he spent six years in an orphanage because his mother could not afford to keep him at home. Now aged 83, he says:" I've had the best adventure you could possible have, for a kid that started from nowhere."

Record: Mahler's 8th Symphony
Book: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Luxury: A dozen bottles of Vidal Sassoon hair shampoo

Producer: Isabel Sargent.

Published on Sunday, 9th October 2011.

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