ALEXANDRE (Hairdresser)

Alexandre de Paris, or “Monsieur Alexandre”, as he liked to be known, attends to Elizabeth Taylor’s hair in 1962. Many legends surrounded the hairdresser, whose clients included the Duchess of Windsor, Coco Chanel and Grace Kelly. His parents, it is said, had wanted him to study medicine, but after a fortune teller predicted that “the wife of a king will do everything for you”, they relented and let him pursue his ambition. He was apprenticed to Antoine, the Parisian stylish who invented the urchin cut. Alexandre took on his mantle and became the hairdresser of the European social jet. Jean Cocteau designed his motif, a sphinx, for him in gratitude for the perm that restored to him “the curly hair of a true poet”. In 1997, Jean Paul Gaultier persuaded Alexandre out of retirement to design the hair for his first couture show, as he had done for Coco Chanel, Pierre Balmain and Yves Saint Laurent.

Also look up for Antoine, Cocteau, Gaultier, Recine, Windsor, Winston