12
CELEBRATING STEPHEN
Racoon International’ s Creative Director, Stephen Messias, is blessed with awesome energy, enthusiasm and creativity. Here, Stephen walks us through his hugely successful hairdressing career which spans some 50-plus years.
Born in East London and raised in Peckham from the age of five, I fell into hairdressing by accident in a way. My father was a tailor – an incredible tailor actually, creative, a perfectionist and wonderful at fine detailing garments.
One of his customers, a top hairdresser at the Dumas salon in Mayfair’ s Albemarle Street recommended hairdressing as a good career, telling me a brand new name on the scene, Vidal Sassoon, was the way forward for the future.
My mother and I, aged 14, spent a whole day‘ up west’, going into salon after salon in search of a job and I was eventually taken on as a Saturday boy at André of Paris.
Later on I saw Vidal Sassoon advertising for apprentices in Hairdresser’ s Journal. Three interviews later – I got the job, but didn’ t know six of us were being taken on for just two apprenticeships and had to prove ourselves in a six-week period. Along with Michael Collis, founder of Molton Brown – I was one of the lucky ones.
September 1959, 171 Bond Street – the start of my 10 year career with Vidal Sassoon. Walking into the Sassoon salon took me from a black and white world in Peckham to a life in Technicolor, a kaleidoscope world; I’ d never seen people like that, only in films or the theatre, it was an extraordinary experience.
Every time Vidal walked through the door, the atmosphere was totally electric. Rubbing shoulders with the likes of Leonard, Roger Thompson, Joshua Galvin, Christopher Brooker... watching such creative geniuses at work was spellbinding. Vidal was a hell of a taskmaster with punishing standards. He simply wouldn’ t settle for anything other than the absolute best, rejected anything that was less than perfect. He instilled in us a fervour to be the same.
You have to remember we were at the centre of the‘ 60s revolution, in a passionate creative bubble that kept getting bigger and bigger because of our energy and enthusiasm.
We never stopped working, creating, experimenting, sharing ideas. Thinking about time didn’ t come into it, this was a vocation, it was enthralling, like a page turner, a book you just can’ t put down. Every day was a new chapter that unfolded, you just wanted to be there, didn’ t want to go on holiday in case you missed something.
People today are too impatient,‘ want it all now’. Back then we had fire in our belly, a desire in our eyes; we watched, listened, learned, practised, grafted and grafted with a dedication and determination to be the absolute best – no room for shortcuts. Like the footballer who stays behind to train after the match, the chef who experiments in the kitchen once the restaurant’ s closed, we – cutters and colourists alike – carried on until all hours, including Sundays, to practise, try things out, discover new methods and techniques.
I worked in the Bond Street, Grosvenor House and New York salons, and I was lucky enough to do the hair for many stars and Hollywood legends of the time, Dionne Warwick, Ingrid Bergman and Peter Sellers included.
We also pioneered the idea of sharing our skills for the betterment of hairdressing, presenting shows and seminars across the UK and abroad – revolutionary at the time. I remember presenting a demo in Derby to a hairdressing group; the owner, Keith Hall, was a great Sassoon fan. He was very forward in his thinking, the first out-of-London hairdresser to recognise Vidal as a forerunner, someone ahead of the game and Mr Hall wanted to bring London fashion to the Midlands. Little did I know the impact meeting Keith Hall would have on my career.
12