Hair stylist David Mallett’s scissor act in Paris

SOME kids are born sports stars, some never get their nose out of a book. David Mallett’s obsession has always been hair.

“When you are four years old you don’t make a decision to become a hairdresser,” he explains. “You just are already doing hair.”

Mallett had not even started school when he first corralled his two older sisters into letting him play with their locks — “plaiting it and braiding it and doing buns and whatever you do when you are four years old and you don’t have access to technique” — at their home in suburban Attadale.

Almost half a century later, he is still playing with hair. The boy from the ’burbs is now one of the most sought-after hairdressers in Paris.

The salon bearing his name and housed in a grand 17th century apartment in the second arrondissement is a favourite of some very famous heads. Drop in for a blow-dry and you could find yourself at the basin alongside Sharon Stone, Gwyneth Paltrow, Natalie Portman or even one of Mallett’s favourites — Kate Winslet.

“I remember saying to someone I would love to work with Kate Winslet, and a week later we were in a room together in Paris,” Mallett says.

Despite not living in WA for 30 years, he retains strong links to his home state and dropped into the STM office on one of his regular trips back to Perth. He first left at age 21, having just won the Schwarzkopf Hairdresser of the Year award, and travelled to Tokyo with photographer Tony Harrison to work on fashion shoots before making his way to London.

“My plan was to travel Europe,” he says. “I wanted to visit some of the greatest museums in Europe and then come back and open a business. That was my plan, but I never came back.”

He was working as a hair-stylist in London

when a job in Paris came up — Lenny Kravitz for the cover of French Vogue. He describes the gig as his “biggest break”.

“The next day I was doing a job with (actress/model) Diane Kruger,” he says. “She was a 15-year-old schoolgirl then. These people were all unknown, but they’ve all become huge celebrities in Europe now. And it just moved like that.”

He decided to spend three months in Paris picking up some extra work, and ended up making it his home. In 2003 he opened his salon, a place from which to base himself after years of globetrotting.

“I had been travelling at that stage for 15 years and after years of not wanting to know where I worked and getting on and off planes and seeing different people I actually wanted to have my feet on the ground,” he says.

“I wanted to open up a salon but I didn’t like many of the salons I worked in Europe. I had a lot of people coming over to my flat and we had a big mirror in the lounge room and everyone said, ‘I could never go back to a salon again, it’s highly impersonal, we hate the lighting’, so we decided to open in a 17th century apartment.

“It’s this big and beautiful place with a fireplace and huge ceilings. People felt good in it, comfortable, and the whole thing just organically processed.

“I just threw myself in and thought, ‘This is going to be fun.’ All my friends were like, ‘You’re crazy! Don’t do it.’ Running a business in France is really hard.”

Hard it may be, but Mallett is doing OK. There is roughly a three-week waiting list to get in to the salon, and a cut and blow-dry in his exclusive salon will set you back a cool €250 (about $370).

“The path of my career was never something I sat down and mapped,” he says. “I was just really happy to take a chance and I was never worried about how bad it could go or how good it could go. I just got in there and had a good time.”

And there have been plenty of good times.

“There were moments I thought were incredible,” he says. “Like doing the Pirelli calendar with Peter Beard in the middle of Botswana with Daria (supermodel Daria Werbowy), sitting on top of an elephant and watching tigers walking past with some of the most beautiful women in the world.

“We were on an elephant-backed safari and I was there for two weeks with 10 of the world’s most beautiful women and I was paid a lot of money to do that. I couldn’t have imagined anything greater.” He grins. “It was good.”

He has worked with Penélope Cruz and Sharon Stone, but lists Cate Blanchett as a head of hair he would love to get his hands on. “I find her incredibly stylish and gracious and also the fact she’s Australian,” he says. “I admire her.”

Vogue Australia editor-in-chief Edwina McCann is a good friend and describes Mallett as “one of the world’s best hair-stylists”.

“His client list reads like a who’s who of celebrities, international jet-setters and Vogue editors,” she says. “His Paris salon is legendary.”

Mallett is set to open a second salon in the French capital in the newly renovated Ritz Hotel. He has

also recently launched a new product, Volume Powder, which he says will give users bouncy, “French girl” hair.

“In Europe now, everything is loose,” he says of the big-hair trend he’s seeing. “In Paris at the moment, everything is loose and soft and pretty, it’s not hard or ugly or violent.

“France is going through a pretty rough time at the moment, so people want to look really good. They don’t want to look trashy or anything like that.

“There is lots of really pretty hair going on.”

He describes the mood in France as “heavy, really heavy”.

The nation has been rocked by terror attacks in Paris and Nice in the past year, and Mallett, who regularly travels around the country, says things are “bubbling”.

Despite not having lived in Australia for 30 years Mallett says he can imagine himself moving home.

“I’m greedy,” he explains. “I’m selfish in that way.

“I would like to spend summer in Perth and summer in Paris — that would be something really great. I come back really regularly so my family ties and ties with friends are really close.

“I could easily imagine living back here full time. And I absolutely hate winter. I never, ever got used to it, this European winter, I never did like it.”

But no matter where he is, one thing seems certain: David Mallett will continue to play with hair.