Rose Evansky

Evansky was born in Worms, Germany on 30 May 1922, to a Jewish family who were immigrants from Poland. Her father was sent to Dachau concentration camp in 1938, and Rose was one of the last children to be sent to Britain from Germany on the Kindertransport trains.^[2]

In 1962,^[3] from her salon window, Evansky noticed a barber using a powerful new hand-held dryer—together with a hairbrush—to smooth a man's hair. A little while later she was spotted trying it in her salon (on a Mrs. Hay) by Clare Rendlesham who set about marketing this blow-wave which worked on straight hair as well. Within a year, all the leading stylists in Mayfair, London offered it.^[3] using a hand-held blowdryer on her Mayfair clients "to create a soft, natural look". She also trained the notable hairdresser, Leonard of Mayfair.^[4][5][6][7] This was quite a step up from her early beginnings as an apprentice working for Adolf Cohen of Whitechapel Road, known as the "professor" of the hairdressing trade, who also trained Vidal Sassoon.^[3]

After the war the couple opened their first hair salon together in 1947 in Hendon, north London. Within six years, they were able to move up the career ladder, renting premises in North Audley Street, Mayfair. But when she moved into blowdrying, her husband accused her of "having gone mad," since they had just purchased 20 new hood dryers and he was not prepared to throw them out. A few were kept for the older clients and those who still requested high-dressed, lacquered styles. This was one element of the strain on their marriage, and they later divorced.