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Trevor Sorbie passed away at 75
The hairstylist Trevor Sorbie, renowned for introducing the wedge haircut and creating scrunch drying, has passed away at the age of 75, as stated by his company.
The stylist, who was often seen on television and owned a hair product line, disclosed in October that he had only weeks to live after his bowel cancer had metastasized to his liver.
Trevor Sorbie “passed away peacefully with his family and beloved dog by his side”, his team said in a statement on Friday. “Trevor’s journey, marked by unparalleled creativity and kindness, has left an indelible mark on the world of hairdressing and beyond.”
Trevor Sorbie was a four-time British Hairdresser of the Year whose techniques impacted the hairdressing industry, with styles he created called the wolfman, the sculpture, the wave, and the quick, scrunch drying method.
He was born in Paisley in 1949 and spent his upbringing in Essex. He aspired to be an artist, but after facing bullying at school, he started cutting hair as a 15-year-old apprentice at his father’s barbershop in Ilford. “I found hairdressing easy,” he remarked. “I went from paint to hair, both on a creative journey.”
He was employed at various salons prior to establishing his initial central London salon in 1977, and later introduced his own line of styling products in 1986.
The wedge, a sleek and sharply angled style introduced by the hairdresser in 1974 during his tenure at Vidal Sassoon, became the inaugural haircut to appear in a double-page spread in Vogue. “The wedge captured the spirit of the time and was flaunted in nightclubs around the world,” he remarked afterward. “I now understood the power of invention. If I could achieve this once, then surely I could do it again.”
Trevor Sorbie on ITV show
During an appearance on ITV’s This Morning last month, Sorbie mentioned that he accidentally developed his scrunch drying method, which involves compressing the hair in the hands while blow drying. “At the time you don’t know you were groundbreaking.”
“I had this lady with long thick red porous hair. These were ladies who lunch and she wanted it dried with my hands. I said, can I speed this up a bit, and I … just got handfuls of her hair and shook it out, and this hair just came out like a haystack.”
“I experimented on different types of hair and it worked every time. Every woman in the world has scrunched her hair.”
He frequently appeared on television and styled various celebrity clients, but he stated that his greatest honor was receiving an MBE from Queen Elizabeth in 2004.
Trevor Sorbie commenced volunteering at the Princess Alice hospice located in Esher, Surrey, after he began to reduce his time on the salon floor in 2006.
He shared with the Times that he felt “it really unnerved” when asked to trim the wig of a patient for her wedding, but was informed she could die before that. “She died the next day, but as I shut the door [after cutting her wig], I remember thinking for the first time in my life: ‘I’m not just a hairdresser, I feel special’,” he reminisced.
He subsequently established the charity My New Hair to assist and guide independent salons and stylists in offering a wig-styling service for individuals with cancer, and contributed to creating a standard for NHS wigs.
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