The French Legacy

As every French hairdresser, Olivier Crespel is conscious of the French heritage regarding the hairdressing. Indeed, the history of French hairdressers is old and dates back to the 18^th century. Legros de Rumigny or Léonard were the hairdressers of the French Royal Court and “styled” royal’s heads such as Marie-Antoinette, Madame de Pompadour and Madame de Matignon.

Marie-Antoinette 

painted by 
Joseph Ducreux

Madame de Pompadour 

painted by 

Francois Boucher

But the florescence of the French hairdressing really started in the 20th century with Antoine, also called Monsieur Antoine. This Poland born hairdresser moved to Paris in the early 20^th century, where he opened his first salon. Antoine was the forerunner of the shingle cut in the 20’s and created the iconic “garçonne” haircut and in particular, he styled Coco Chanel and Edith Piaf. Later, he opened a salon in New York which became the most fashionnable hair salon in the U.S.

"Monsieur Antoine"

A few decades later, Alexandre de Paris (born Louis Alexandre Raimon) became a famous hairstylist in Paris during the 60’s. Indeed, he took care of Elizabeth Taylor’s haircut in the movie Cleopatra. He also styled  famous actresses such as Romy Schneider, Audrey Hepburn and even Jackie Kennedy when the presidential couple came to Paris in 1961.

Alexandre de Paris  

           Elizabeth Taylor

in Cleopatra

Of course, this is just a brief overview of the massive and renowned French hairdressing legacy that every French hairdresser has in mind and does his best to represent it and to honor it.

Movie stars influence hairstyles in January 2014

2014 starts with a bang in the little world of show business with several film festivals in January (Golden Globes 2014, Sundance 2014 or the Producers Guild Awards 2014).

There were several film events during this first month of 2014 and what says film Festival, automatically implies Red Carpet and stars parade. The most famous actors parade on the Red Carpet for hours and for the pleasure of tabloids. All the film community is present and trying to impress with dresses, tuxedos and outstanding hairstyles. It is almost like a contest of who will be the most remarked person. Indeed, the more they are remarked, the more the people will speak about their movie.

All the tabloids from the country and abroad are delighted by these events and write tons and tons of papers about the stars’ look. One of their favorite activities is to launch contests among their audience such as, ‘who was wearing the finest dress?’ or ‘who had the most beautiful hairstyle?’. And regarding the audience we can say that people love to give their opinion about it.

If it’s an opportunity for the tabloids to receive a great deal of attention, for the “mere mortals” that we are it is the opportunity to discover the new hairstyle trends and get inspired. It is like a supermarket of haircuts. So many styles are represented on the Red Carpet that you can choose your inspiration between a lot of short haircut, faux-bob or an ombré like Jennier Lawrence, Cate Blanchet or Olivia Wilde.

Photos: BellaSugar

For the gentlemen, like we said in previous articles, the trend was to wear a beard. Whether it was a real beard, a 3-day beard or a goatee, most part of the actors and directors chose to wear one.


Photo:  Angela Weiss / Jason Merritt / Kevin Winter, Getty Images