French twist

I flip through the book with its auteur. It's divided into decades, each section beginning with a collection of photos of everyday women of the times sporting their now-retro coiffures.

"Hairstyles in the 1920s seem so modern to me," I say. "But the curls of 1940s look dumb."

"You're talking to a hairdresser," Serge says. "I love every type of hair. The 1940s was right after the war. Women tried to do whatever they could with what they had." He pauses. "I feel there is something very fetching about every decade."

"This is beyond aesthetics," I say. "Bangs. I have an irritation with bangs."

"Really?" he says, raising an eyebrow. "I love bangs. What you're reacting to is a lot of women try to hide behind bangs maybe. You want to see more of their faces. There's something about the expression of the eyes, and with bangs you can't really see them." Then he adds, "Our generation had a lot of little girls with bangs. It's rare that you see very flattering bangs."

We look at Ellen Barkin wearing only a sheet and a Bardot-esque cascade of blond curls.

"I love everything that's happened to hair," Serge says. "We have a tendency to want what we don't have. If you have straight hair, you want wavy hair. If you're blond, to be a brunet. If you're redhead, you want to be brunet. If you're small, you want to be tall. If you're fat, skinny. If you're skinny, you want to be bigger. Unless you get to the point where you accept what you are and have fun with it."

I turn to a picture of Cate Blanchett with a shaved head. "I absolutely love her but hate the hair," I say. "It's like Joan of Arc."

"Joan of Arc was not that," he says. "Joan of Arc was the bangs that you hate." (I don't know what he means, but both Joan and Serge are French, so go figure.) "Cate had to shave it for a movie that was going out."

"In your experience, how liberating or traumatic is it for a woman with long hair to cut it?"

"It's always sort of a shock with long blond hair," he answers. "For black hair it's not as traumatic. I don't know why in America we have the tendency to love the blonds over and over. For the woman getting it cut, it's something freeing. When you're feminine, you're feminine. There are some women who don't feel good with short hair and should never have short hair."

"Do most women feel wonderful after you cut it all off?"

"Most of the time, yeah," he answers. "It's almost like rebellion."

"Has anyone ever freaked out on you?"

He smiles. "Believe it or not, I've never had any drama on that side for the simple reason that I never transform someone against their will. I would never cut long to short unless the woman is completely ready. Never. Because it may be the nicest haircut and she might look the best, but if she's not ready to look this way she will never see it." He points to the photo of Blanchett. "The liberating feeling of cutting your hair short without trying to be sexy -- that's part of the 1960s. When Jean Seberg was huge in France and she had a very short haircut which was not the feminine look of the time or the bouffant thing. Jean Seberg was adorable. It was very boyish. That was the first time that someone dared cut their hair off and thought, 'I don't care if people think I am a girl or a boy.'"

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