Madrid, (EFE).- The hairdresser Lluis Llongueras died this Monday in Barcelona at the age of 87 due to throat cancer, sources close to the family have confirmed to EFE.
Nicknamed the “Dalí of the hairdresser”, Llongueras was born in Esparraguera, Barcelona, on May 24, 1936. He was the son of a couturier. He started out in hairdressing almost self-taught and developed a new concept of feminine beauty at a very young age.
The hairdresser Lluís Llongueras marked a way of doing things in female hair aesthetics. With boundless energy, he knew how to offer a woman what favored her the most, and with his eternal smile, broken voice and firm confidence, he also knew how to conquer great stars.
His relationship with the world of hairdressing began at the age of 14 and he opened his first salon in Barcelona in 1958. In the 1960s, he was the first Spanish hairdresser to internationally disseminate photographs with his seasonal proposals, something common today, but not so.
Each hairstyle was a proposal for a work of art. The hair of Alain Delon, Cayetana de Alba, Romy Schneider passed through his hands and it is said that it was he who inspired Queen Sofía’s hairstyle.
He also advised the infantas Elena and Cristina, and it was common for Carmen Sevilla, Lola Flores, Massiel and Bianca Jagger to request his attention to improve their hair.
He always defended the elegance and style of the anonymous woman. “Each person needs a particular cut, according to their work and their way of life.”
He hated aesthetic uniformity and was convinced that the mood was closely related to the image. “Changing your image can save your life,” he said and assured that everyone was hiding something attractive.
A OWN STYLE
Throughout his profession, Lluís Llongueras managed to create his own style, becoming an unmistakable hallmark, although he insisted that “creating a style is just as important as helping a person to define themselves through their hairstyle”.
In 1972 he inaugurated the first unisex salon in Spain and in 1976 he made a series of monumental wigs for Dalí, his client and friend, whose hair he cut and for whom he made hairpieces to lengthen his peculiar moustache.
In fact, his particular way of creating, his eccentricity, sometimes led him to be nicknamed the “Dalí of the hairdresser”.
In 1978 he surprised the profession with the creation of the popular Llongueras waves. Wherever the designers went with their Llongueras fashion proposals, he would go to present the hairstyles and match their presenters with the most prestigious fashion shows.
MULTIFACETED ARTIST
A multifaceted artist, in 1984 he exhibited his sculptures for the first time in the Busquets gallery in Barcelona, and in 1991 he published his first book of poetry and photography “Angel by day, Muse by night”.
In 2005, the Benedormiens Castle in Castell-Platja d’Aro hosted the first exhibition of his work with the title “A multidisciplinary spirit”, in which he gave free rein to all the artistic aspects that interested him.
Interests such as drawing, painting, photography and sculpture. Precisely, the latter are distributed by collections of prominent owners such as the Thyssen private collection, that of the Duchess of Alba, that of Esther Koplowitz or the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation.
He married twice, the last one, after several decades of living together with Jocelyne Novella in 2012, the same year in which he signed the patrimonial peace with his first family, after two years of confrontations.
In 2000 he received the Sant Jordi Cross and in 2021 the International Hairdressing Fair, Salón Look, recognized his 60 years of professional career with the Honor Award for being “a world benchmark for its cutting technique and own method”. .