
Rodrick Samuels on The Silent Work, Modern Beauty Education and Why Empathy Wins
MODERN SALON sat down with Samuels to discuss the book, beauty education, mentorship and the habits that help beauty professionals thrive.
Modern Salon's Editor Laurel Nelson caught up with Vidal Sassoon about his new movie, his career highlights and his advice for hair stylists in an exclusive podcast. Here’s a peek into their conversation.
Modern Salon's Editor Laurel Nelson caught up with Vidal Sassoon about his new movie, his career highlights and his advice for hair stylists in an exclusive podcast. Here's a peek into their conversation:
Laurel Nelson: How much input did you have into making "Vidal Sassoon The Movie"?
Vidal Sassoon: I was involved in the whole process. You can't have a film made about yourself without being involved. Between [Producer] Michael Gordon and [Director] Craig Teper, they truly put something together. You've got to remember, there's no actors in this-it's just people I worked with over the years.
Laurel Nelson: What is the main message of the movie that salon professionals can walk away with?
Vidal Sassoon: I don't think there's anything quite as exciting as what we do. Hairdressing is the only craft where you take a face-maybe someone you've never seen before-you look at the bone structure, the height, and the body structure of the woman. You get a feeling, and then you start cutting. If she glides out with a glint in her eye, you know you've been successful. There is no other craft where you can physically at that moment change somebody's look. That alone should make people excited. It certainly made me excited.
Laurel Nelson: What advice do you have for a stylist who's just starting out and wants to make a name for
themself?
Vidal Sassoon: It's really an inner self. You can either be lethargic in life or you can feel yourself. Most young people you talk to don't realize they have passion within them. They feel ordinary. They shouldn't because if you are prepared to give so much of yourself to any creative art form, something's going to come out of you because it's within all of us.
Laurel Nelson: In your career you've had the salons, the training, the schools, the product line, you've been in numerous shows: If you could name one thing, what are you most proud of?
Vidal Sassoon: The training. It would appear that what we had to teach was wanted in many parts of the world by many hairdressers; and of course we love teaching because if you teach something to yourself, it becomes a
secret. It dies. If you open academies of schools and you teach what you have to teach, it becomes something that's part of the norm. The fact that we managed to get our message out there to so many people who wanted it, utilized it, and have taken it further, that has to be it. Doing one super cut that was different, that was all terribly exciting, but being involved with so many hairdressers worldwide, nothing could beat that actually.
Download the podcast of this exclusive interview at modernsalon.com under the TV/Multimedia tab!

MODERN SALON sat down with Samuels to discuss the book, beauty education, mentorship and the habits that help beauty professionals thrive.

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