Robert S. Wistrich: The Legacy Of Vidal Sassoon

The following by Robert S. Wistrich is posted here with permission:

The Legacy of Vidal Sassoon

Robert S. Wistrich

I first became aware of Vidal Sassoon’s rise to prominence about 45 years ago as a young student at Cambridge University. It was the age of Beatlemania, the heyday of the fashion designer Mary Quant and her mini-skirts, of the celebrity photographer David Bailey, the spirit of Carnaby Street and the slightly hysterical excitement of “Swinging London.” Vidal Sassoon was part of that universal “Youthquake,” of a newly affluent and style-obsessed Western consumer society.

Vidal Sassoon, The Jewish "Anti-Fascist Warrior-Hairdresser"

In its article Three Things You Probably Didn't Know About 'Anti-Fascist Warrior Hairdresser' Vidal Sassoon, The Blaze reveals that there was a lot more to Vidal Sassoon than being an innovative hairdresser:

Upon his return to London, the 14-year-old started apprenticing as a hairdresser and by age 17 longed to serve in the Second World War. He would soon find out that he did not need to go abroad to fight Fascists, however, as there were plenty right there in England. He was the youngest to join the “43 Group,” an organization founded in 1946 by Jewish veterans who had returned from war only to discover that British Union Fascist Oswald Mosley was fanning the flames of anti-Semitism across the city. Sassoon, along with his compatriots scoured the streets of east London breaking up any and all Fascist gatherings they uncovered. The British news outlet the Telegraph even gave the famed stylist the title, “anti-fascist warrior-hairdresser.”