The Colorist

JUL-AUG 2013

For hair color trends and celebrity hair, colorists turn to The Colorist. Celebrity hair, hair color ideas, hair color products and more.

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upfront in remembrance ➜ the record, his full name was Kenneth Battelle, but throughout his storied career he was known simply as Kenneth. On Mother's Day, the legendary hairdresser, who was 86, passed away at his home in Wappingers Falls, New York, far from the hustle and bustle of Manhattan where he tended to the locks of the rich and famous for years. Arguably the first celebrity hairdresser, Kenneth was the man responsible for creating Jackie Kennedy's signature bouffant. Tis was long before Meg Ryan's chop or Jennifer Aniston's "Rachel" caused such a stir, and it made Kenneth a household name. In 1961, Kenneth became the first and only hairdresser to receive the Coty American Fashion Critics' Award, and he opened his first salon that same year, attracting society mavens and celebrities like Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe and Lucille Ball, who called him "God." On the street, women asked for his autograph, and according to Karlys Daly Brown, a former beauty editor at Glamour, when that magazine featured his name on the cover, circulation went up. Two other hairdressers in the 1960s may have been as famous—Alexandre in Paris and Vidal Sassoon in London—but Kenneth belonged to us. Born in Syracuse, New York, in 1927, he went to Syracuse University on the G.I. Bill (he'd been in the Navy), then promptly enrolled in beauty school—much to his mother's dismay. "Red-blooded American boys don't do that," she said at the time. Fortunately, Kenneth was undeterred and landed a job at Helena Rubinstein in New York City. In 1954, Mrs. Kennedy, who was newly married, came into the salon for a cut and was referred to Kenneth, who believed her hair, which was short and curly, would look better if it was "stretched out" by setting it on big rollers. Since the size he desired didn't exist at the time, he had them made out of Lucite. Extremely selfeffacing, Kenneth declined to call what he did for a living either a profession or an art and refused to gossip about his famous clients, insisting that the relationship between a hairdresser and his client was an "intimate one." His talent, his class and, most of all, his humility will be missed. 8 The Colorist | JULY/AUGUST 2013 Kenneth styles model Kathy Carpenter's hair in the early 1960s. Marianne Dougherty EDITOR IN CHIEF mdougherty@creativeage.com PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES For

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