In June, John Frieda offered a simple account of what mattered in his trade: “If you have a client in front of you, rather than thinking about the money or what you're getting from cutting their hair, just think about the action. The reward is giving her the best haircut she's ever had. That is your reward.”
Frieda, the celebrity hairstylist and beauty entrepreneur, has died aged 75. His London salon announced his death in an Instagram post and said he died peacefully surrounded by his family.
Born Alan Howard Frieda in Kenton, Middlesex in 1951, he entered a family profession. His father was a hairdresser who ran a salon in Ealing, west London, and his grandfather had worked as a barber on Fleet Street.
He began as an assistant to Leonard Lewis at London’s House of Leonard in the late 1960s. Another stylist there was already called Alan, so Frieda took the name John.
He quickly became a favoured stylist among celebrities in the 1960s and 1970s, working with Twiggy, Jackie Kennedy and Mick Jagger. He also worked for British Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.
In 1976, Frieda opened his own salon in central London at age 25. That year he created the Purdey bowl cut worn by Joanna Lumley in the television spy series The New Avengers, a style closely identified with the actor.
His salon business grew with a second London location in Mayfair, then branches in Barbados, Ibiza and Los Angeles.
Frieda worked with Diana, Princess of Wales, Madonna, Nicole Kidman and Scarlett Johansson during his career. In the 1980s, his clients also included Paul McCartney.
His larger commercial achievement came through products. He created Frizz-Ease hair serum with Gail Federici in 1988; it arrived in the UK that year and in the United States in 1990.
Frieda and Federici partnered in 1989 to launch John Frieda Professional Hair Care. He followed Frizz-Ease with the Sheer Blonde line in 1998.
In 2002, Frieda and Federici sold the company to the Japanese conglomerate Kao for $450 million. Frieda kept five salons after the sale: two in London, two in New York and one in Los Angeles.
He married the Scottish singer Lulu in 1977. They had one son, Jordan Frieda.
Frieda met his second wife, Avery Agnelli, in 2002 and married her in 2019. They had two children, Jackson and Leyla, and Frieda was stepfather to Agnelli’s daughter, Asia Agnelli Lagrange.
From the House of Leonard to a global haircare brand, Frieda’s career joined the intimate work of the salon chair to products made for a far wider public. The name he adopted to avoid confusion with another Alan became a prominent name in haircare.
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