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Celebrity hairstylist John Frieda dies aged 75
The man who styled Twiggy, was married to Lulu and tamed our frizz leaves owned five salons in the UK and the US
Celebrity hairstylist and beauty entrepreneur John Frieda has died aged 75. Born Alan Howard Frieda in London in 1951, his father Isidore was a hairdresser who owned a salon in Ealing, while his grandfather fled pogroms in Poland to become a Fleet Street barber.
Isidore had wanted his son to be a doctor. “I became a hairdresser for all the wrong reasons, to get out of studying,” said Frieda. “My father was very angry. But when he realised I was determined, he said I must work for the top salon in London.”
After working for his father, Frieda joined London hair salon House of Leonard and became the assistant of Leonard Lewis – who was credited with creating the haircut that launched the career of model Twiggy.
He went on to work for Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, as well as with Lewis’s clients including Twiggy, Jackie Onassis and Sir Mick Jagger. Throughout his career, Frieda worked with other clients including Diana, Princess of Wales, Madonna, Nicole Kidman and Scarlett Johansson.
In 1976, Frieda invented the “Purdey” hairstyle – creating the bowl cut for Dame Joanna Lumley after she asked him for a schoolboy’s haircut for her role in The New Avengers. That same year, he opened his own salon at the age of 25 – and also married his first wife, singer Lulu.
He then reinvented himself as the king of hair care products, falling into this by accident. When he was styling models for Vogue, the photographers demanded fast-changing hairstyles, so Frieda began experimenting, adding new ingredients to existing products. One day on a shoot, Frieda noticed one of his formulas gave the model “lion’s mane hair”. Soon everyone wanted “the green lotion”. He worked with with American haircare executive Gail Federici to create his own product line, launching Frizz-Ease in 1988.
Frieda and Lulu separated in 1991. In 2019 he married Frances Avery Agnelli. That year he also sold his haircare product company to Japanese conglomerate Kao for 450 million dollars (£260 million).
He retained his five salons – two in London, two in New York and one in Los Angeles.
Cetera Lamb – creative director at Frieda’s London salon said: “The industry has lost a true legend, a real maverick in hairdressing.
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