Vidal Sassoons extraordinary life has taken him from an impoverished East End childhood to global fame. The father of modern hairdressing his slick sharp cutting took the fashion world by storm & reinvented the hairdressers art. Before Vidal Sassoon a trip to the hairdressers meant a shampoo & set or a stiffly lacquered up-do that would last a week -- or more. After Vidal Sassoon hair was sleek smooth & very very stylish. Along with his lifelong friend & partner in style Mary Quant who he first met in 1957 & who to this day sports a Sassoon-style geometric bob he styled the 1960s. As memorable as the mini -- be it car or skirt -- he is one of the few people who can genuinely be described as iconic. His memoirs are as rich in anecdote as one might hope & full of surprising & often moving stories of his early life -- his time at the Spanish & Portuguese Jewish Orphanage in Maida Vale fighting Fascists in Londons East End & fighting in the army of the fledgling state of Israel in the late Forties. & then theres the extraordinary career during which he cut the hair of everyone who was anyone launched salons all over the world founded the hairdressing school that still bears his name & became a global brand with Vidal Sassoon products on all our bathroom shelves.