Trevor Sorbie, a celebrity hairstylist who is credited with creating the “wedge” cut made popular by the figure skater Dorothy Hamill, and whose scrunch drying method became widely used in the 1980s, died on Friday at his home in Fareham, England. He was 75.
Bree Davie, the chief executive of Mr. Sorbie’s company, confirmed his death. Mr. Sorbie announced last month that he had bowel cancer that had spread to his liver.
Hair, Mr. Sorbie often mused, could be revolutionary.
In the 1970s, one of the most recognizable hair shapes was Ms. Hamill’s wedge, which inspired viewers as she skated in the 1976 Olympics and shook her locks in shampoo commercials. The style, with short hair at the nape of the neck and longer layers near the face, was modeled after Mr. Sorbie’s original design.
When Mr. Sorbie created the shape in 1974 — by chance, while styling a model before a stage show in Paris — it became so popular that it was featured in a two-page spread in Vogue magazine.
“The wedge captured the spirit of the time and was flaunted in nightclubs around the world,” Mr. Sorbie said on his salon’s website. After creating the style, he added, “I now understood the power of invention.”
Like clothing trends or melodies, hairstyles can also immediately recall the bustle or rebellion of an era. Mr. Sorbie tried to capture a cultural spirit while pushing the boundaries of expression.
“Punk inspired me because it was the opposite of everything that was happening at the time,” Mr. Sorbie said about his “wolf man” style from 1980, a protruding, pointed mass of hair dyed at the ends. “I took my inspiration from the streets and turned it around.”
Trevor John Sorbie was born on March 13, 1949, in Paisley, Scotland, to Robert Sorbie, a barber, and Edna (Saxby) Sorbie. Survivors include his wife, Carole Sorbie; a daughter, Jade Sorbie; and a brother, Mike.
When Mr. Sorbie was young, he and his family moved to the town of Ilford, in London. During high school, he had ambitions of becoming a painter, but because of social difficulties, he dropped out at age 15 and considered working in a factory.
His father suggested that he join him at the family barbershop and learn the trade. In 1969, Mr. Sorbie opened his own barbershop.
He attended the Richard Henry School of Hairdressing in London, and in 1972 began working for Vidal Sassoon, another innovator whose creative styles were shaped on the heads of stars including Mia Farrow, Goldie Hawn and Cameron Diaz.
Soon, Mr. Sorbie was on his way to the kind of recognition Mr. Sassoon enjoyed. In 1973, he became Mr. Sassoon’s artistic director.
It was at one of Mr. Sassoon’s stage shows in Paris that Mr. Sorbie began, with the pull of a brush, the cultural phenomenon known as the wedge.
“If anyone asked me, when did ambition come into my life, I would say at that point,” he said in a 1986 documentary. “That starts to become the motivation in your life: I want to do that again.”
Although his hairstyles were shaped to perfection, he often found inspiration in moments of necessity.
When he developed the scrunch dry method in 1979, he was trying to more quickly finish a client’s look, taking clumps of hair in his hand and applying heat with a blow-dryer. The technique, which produces a voluminous and curly mane, is still used today by salons and in front of home mirrors.
In 1979, Mr. Sorbie opened his flagship salon in the Covent Garden district of London, and four years later honed a “chop” style. In 1985, he won the British Hairdresser of the Year award, which he would win three more times, a record.
Mr. Sorbie went on to style hair for the Beach Boys, Dame Helen Mirren and Boy George. In 2004, he was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for services to British hairdressing, becoming the first hairdresser to receive the distinction.
As he began to step back from daily life at his salon in later years, a chance interaction led him to another passion.
His sister-in-law, who had cancer, asked Mr. Sorbie if he would give her a wig, but he thought that it looked unnatural and styled it himself. She cried tears of joy when she saw it, Mr. Sorbie said in an interview for Infringe, a hairstyle magazine, in 2017.
“My whole hairdressing career did a right turn at that point,” he said.
He began to teach seminars on how to style wigs, and continued to serve women in need, founding My New Hair, which provides wigs for women who have cancer or hair loss from medical conditions.
“I don’t get a penny,” he added. “But I’ll tell you what I do get: I get a thank-you card.”
This year, Cosmoprof, a trade organization, recognized Mr. Sorbie’s work with a Life Achievement Award, given to innovators in the industry who have made a tangible social impact.
“All I’ve done is I’ve followed the dream and I got where I wanted to be,” Mr. Sorbie told Infringe. “It’s been bumpy, but I wouldn’t change much of my life at all.”
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