For nine years I worked to change what was hairdressing then into a geometric art form with color, perm without setting which had never been done before.
So I was shampooing at 14. But I've always thought that had I the opportunity for an education, I would have been an architect. There's no question about it.
I believe in the equality of man and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.
I got a telegraph from my mother who said that my step-father had had a heart attack, come home and earn a living. So I went back to England and the only thing I knew to earn any cash was through hairdressing.
I came home after a year and although my profession was only hairdressing, I knew I could change it.
It was my mother's idea. Her feeling was that I didn't have the intelligence to pick a trade myself.
I'll never forget one morning I walked in and I had a hell of a bruise - it had been a difficult night the night before - and a client said to me, 'Good God, Vidal, what happened to your face?' And I said, 'Oh, nothing, madam, I just fell over a hairpin.'