FASHION Magazine

The first time I set Sophia Loren’s hair, she was staying at a friend’s house. I went with Alexandre [de Paris] to a penthouse where the Eiffel Tower was like in your face,” Laurent Philippon tells me, putting his hand in front of his face and covering his wide, earnest eyes to demonstrate his up-close-and-personal proximity to the grand edifice and, perhaps, to the starlet herself. Either way, I’m enthralled. “And she opened the door in a bra, panties and a little light silk thing. I was like, Oh my gosh, this is Sophia Loren. She had bare feet, and the body was sick, sick.”

Philippon is regaling me with snippets from his fantastic life. We’re sipping fizzy drinks at Hôtel Le Germain’s lounge in Toronto, and his stories feel like a breath of fresh air—contrary to au courant tell-all tales detailing celebrity DUI hoopla.

For one whose life overflows with glittering experiences, it’s pleasantly surprising to find Philippon a humble man. It’s shocking when you consider that his resumé read like Page Six in the New York Post long before he even became Bumble and Bumble’s top international session stylist, just over a decade ago. And as the former apprentice to the renowned Paris stylist Alexandre de Paris—during the height of haute couture hair—Philippon set hundreds of classic French coifs for the elite likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Queen Noor of Jordan and, of course, Loren. But even with his been-there-styled-that credentials, he remains unaffected.

By Adriana Ermter