• May 08, 1995
• Vol. 43
• No. 18

Frederic Fekkai

• 

From PEOPLE Magazine

IMPOSSIBLE AS IT IS TO IMAGINE, EVEN HAIR-CUTTER to the stars Frederic Fekkai knows firsthand what it is to have a bad hair day. "If I put too much conditioner on my hair and it looks flat," says the sloe-eyed, 36-year-old Frenchman, "then I just put gel on it, and I slick it back, and I have another look." Mercifully that's not his problem very often—and certainly not his clients'. As proprietor of Manhattan's exclusive Frederic Fekkai salon (where one of his haircuts costs $290—if you can wait four months), the exotic former model has dressed the tresses of Andie MacDowell, Kim Basinger, Jessica Lange, Demi Moore and Hillary Clinton.

Part of his popularity, to be sure, is his skill with the scissors. But there are also "those wonderful, dark, penetrating eyes," says another customer, CBS This Morning coanchor Paula Zahn. "Ninety-nine percent of the women who come to his salon fall in love with him." At least they no longer slip him their phone numbers. "That used to happen when I was 25, 26," says Fekkai, whose relationship with New York City art dealer Elizabeth Shiell produced year-old son Alexander. "I felt like Warren Beatty in those days!"