Listen "Vidal Sassoon"
Episode Synopsis
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 shampooProducer: Isabel Sargent.
Book: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Luxury: A dozen bottles of Vidal Sassoon hair shampooProducer: Isabel Sargent.
More episodes of the podcast Desert Island Discs
Kate Winslet, actor
18/01/2026
Lee Child, writer
11/01/2026
Margaret Atwood, writer
04/01/2026
Gordon Buchanan, cameraman and presenter
28/12/2025
Sir Salman Rushdie, writer
21/12/2025
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Computer Scientist
14/12/2025
Sally Mann, photographer and writer
07/12/2025
Lorraine Kelly, broadcaster
30/11/2025
Lennie James, actor
23/11/2025
Mary Greenwell, makeup artist
16/11/2025
ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.