THE WOMAN WHO CREATED "BOHO CHIC" HAIR AND BROUGHT FREEDOM TO WOMEN’S HEAD IS GONE.
Ten years after Melka Tréanton’s death, and one month after Nicole Crassat's passing, Fashion has once again lost one of its greatest influencers: the only hairstylist from the 1960s and 1970s Vogue Paris chose to mention in their retrospective book "Vogue en Beauté".
The French hairstylist Thérèse Chardin, credited for creating the iconic boho-chic hairdo that became a worldwide trend in the seventies, has passed away.
Independent and entrepreneurial, Thérèse Chardin had decided to shake off conventions and break apart rigid, established hairstyles that had been deemed appropriate for women. Blurry, foamy hair would become her signature. Her salon on the champs-elysées is a hit.
Her insolence brought her the attention of the fashion press, Marie Claire, Elle, Vogue. Already well known in France, the hairstyles she created for the 1964 chloé runway collection brought her global recognition; free women now had a signature look: blury, unstructured hairdos that mirrored the revolution society was undergoing. L'oréal started to run print commercials using her name.
After successfully lauching a line of wigs, Thérèse Chardin decided to push another boundary. 5 years after France had ended its decolonisation wars, she offered white, upper class people blonde or brunette afro-wigs called "nigerians", long before Madonna. It caused uproar and was too taboo for some fashion magazines that decided not feature the wigs in their editorials.
Building up on her previous successes, she launched a fashion accessory line, followed by a jewerly line, and opened a boutique within Le Printemps department store.
Exhausted from work, she called it quit in the early seventies, going back to Art school. She started working again in the late 80’s, mostly with her best friend Melka Tréanton in New York, where she championed the “Punk look” within women’s magazines.
Her work and influence were recently mentionned in the following publications:
