Businessman. He was a world-wide recognized hairdresser and inventor of hair products. Monsieur Antoine, as he was professionally called, was the "Hairdresser of the Kings and the King of Hairdressers." Born Antoni Cierplikowski, he became a well-respected hairdresser and wigmaker and known as the world's first celebrity hairdresser. As Antoine de Paris, Incorporated, his famous hair salons stretched from Paris and London to Melbourne, Tokyo and Vancouver, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. He was born in Sieradz, Poland to Antoni Cierplikowski, shoemaker, and Joanna Majchrzak, a dressmaker. As a 11-year-old boy, he learned hairdressing by working for his uncle in Łódź. In 1901 he moved to Paris, France, styling the hair of French high society at the Galeries Lafayette and also at the exclusive seaside resort in Deauville. In 1910 he opened the salon "Antoine de Paris" in the Rue Cambon, Paris. He created and sold his own brand of hair products and cosmetics. A turning point was when in 1910 he cut short the hair of 40-year-old actress Eve Lavallière - "a la garconne," thus invented the Bob Haircut, changing forever the look of women in the 20th century. This haircut was worn by his client Coco Chanel and other famous women as the "Flapper girls of the Roaming Twenties." In 1924 he opened a salon at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York, which became the most fashionable hair salon in the United States, becoming the first of a chain that would grow to 110 salons across the United States. During his career, he styled the hair of famous women such as Coco Chanel, Marlene Dietrich, Edith Piaf, Josephine Baker, Queen Marie of Romania, Sarah Bernhardt, Greta Garbo, United States First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Pola Negri, Bette Davis and Brigitte Bardot, among others. His creations cost up to 500 francs or $510. A highlight of his career was the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1937, when he supervised 400 coiffures in one night. During World War II, he left Nazi occupied Paris for the United States for a position at the Hollywood Goldwyn Meyer film studio, but returned to Paris after the war. He is considered to be a true pioneer and revolutionary because he invented many hairstyling products such as hairspray, specialist shampoos, colored hair dyes including the blue rinse for grey hair, and also the perm and blonde streaks or highlights. He is credited with being the first hairdresser to have introduced modern hairdryers in his exclusive salons. At the center of Paris society, he built in 1936 a glass house "the Maison de Verre in Paris", a modern design of glass blocks and steel. Making an eccentric fashion statement, he often donned a white suit with a cape with silver bracelets on his arms and legs. In 1963 he wrote his autobiography entitled, "J'ai coiffé le monde entier" or "I Styled the Hair of the Whole World." In about 1965 he was awarded the French Legion of Honor and in 1967 the Order of Polonia Restituta, one of Poland's highest orders. In the 1970's, after the death of his wife, Berthe Astier, he returned to his homeland, Poland, where he died of cancer. Each summer, in the central Polish city of Sieradz, a National Hairdressers' Competition called the "Open Hair Festival" is held in Antoine de Paris' name to continue his legacy. A life-sized statue of him standing with a mirror in his hand next to a hairdresser's chair is on exhibit on a street in Sieradz. He was given a plot in Division 9 of the Cimetière de Passy in Paris, France, but chose to be buried in his beloved homeland. A copy of the statute by his friend Xawery Dunikowski called "Fatum" was erected on his grave in Poland.