For the love of hair

Over the course of thirty years, Dina was the star of hair stylists, the legendary coiffeuse of Consuelo Crespi, Anna Piaggi and Mina, and a magnet for artists, photographers and designers drawn to her original and inimitable imagination.

Born in the Emilian countryside, she starts working at the age of 10 as the piccinina (shop assistant) for the village hairdresser. As the 1950s draw to a close, she moves to Milan at the age of 17 to attend the Hairdresser Academy, and with her father’s help, takes over her instructor’s small shop on what was then called Vicolo della Spiga. It’s the beginning of her inexorable rise.

Her arrival in Milan coincides with the birth of Italian fashion, which fills the city with a vibrant and electric atmosphere. Designers like Versace and the Missonis vie for her creations, as do the leading fashion photographers, including Helmut Newton and Gian Paolo Barbieri, with whom she develops an extraordinary professional rapport. And then suddenly, at the peak of her success, Dina leaves it all behind. In 1978, on the leading edge of a rising wave, she abruptly rejects hair coloring, permanents and setting hair, in favor of a natural approach to hair care. In so doing she invents the ecology of beauty, and ushers in the New Age of hair. It is her umpteenth and most significant success.

Dispelling the illusion that hair color can change a person’s life or give them a new identity, she offers treatments that bring a deep sense of internal harmony by encouraging her clients to accept themselves, even when their hair begins to turn grey, arguing that hair is a bodily organ and, as such, must be listened to and respected.

In this book Dina reveals her secrets. It’s a precious record of her passions and memories, but also an entertaining account of events, bound by the delicate thread of the love… of hair.