Tim Rogers, hairstylist to the stars and moguls, dies at age 51
Tim Rogers, a sought-after New York hairstylist who fashioned gold-standard looks for a long list of notables, including Adele, Yoko Ono and Roger Federer, and commanded gold-standard prices to match, died Nov. 3 at his home in Gaylordsville, Connecticut. He was 51.
His father, Ian Rogers, said the death came after a brief illness, which he did not specify.
Known for his effervescent charm, his encyclopedic knowledge of disco and his sculptor’s eye when it came to creating head-turning looks, Rogers was born in Britain but spent most of his career in New York. He worked with renowned hairstylist Garren at his salon at the Henri Bendel department store on Fifth Avenue, and at the Sharon Dorram Color at Sally Hershberger salon on the Upper East Side, before partnering with Hershberger, another high-profile hairstylist, at a salon on West 26th Street in Manhattan in 2016.
“Tim was able to sit with clients and determine exactly what would work best for their style,” Hershberger wrote in an email. “His overall style was very polished and classic and stylish, with a bit of playfulness — a prototypical British hairstylist, which was unique in New York.”
Rogers became a fixture in the fashion world. He styled hair for top photographers like Annie Leibovitz, Norman Jean Roy and Patrick Demarchelier, and his work appeared in magazines like Vogue, Vanity Fair and Town & Country. Along the way he created camera-ready looks for Kate Moss, Linda Evangelista and other models, as well as for celebrities, including Diane Sawyer, Carey Mulligan, and Mary-kate and Ashley Olsen.
He was also a presence at New York Fashion Week, doing hair for runway shows for designers, among them Marc Jacobs, Anna Sui and Badgley Mischka. When not trimming locks, he served as a style savant, regularly dishing out beauty and makeover tips for Redbook. In a 2014 beauty advice column, he counseled readers to avoid using too much shampoo, which “can strip hair of its protective oils, making it dry and dull.”
“Use only a nickel-size drop of shampoo on short to medium lengths and a quarter-size dollop for long hair,” he added. “Emulsify it with water in your palm first, then rub it just on your scalp, where hair is most oily.”
Along with his coiffures for famous women, Rogers maintained a thriving clientele among the male power elite, including Federer, the Swiss tennis star, and Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of President John F. Kennedy. In a 2016 interview with The New York Times, he said he regularly rushed off to the Hamptons by helicopter to provide cuts to hedge fund managers and investment bankers.
For male clients, “the requirement is consistency,” he said, adding that he was essentially on call 24 hours a day for heavy hitters. “You have to be available anytime, anywhere,” he said. “There is never a bad time for them.”
No wonder his styles and cuts, according to the article, could cost as much as $800. “Everything,” he said, “has a price.”
Timothy Charles Rogers was born Aug. 11, 1972, in Portsmouth, on the south coast of England. He was the younger of two sons of Ian and Barbara (Walsh) Rogers, who both worked for the Ministry of Defense in Britain.
After graduating from the nearby Crofton School in 1988, he studied business administration at a local college before deciding that office life was not for him, his father said. Instead, he trained as a hairstylist and took a job at a Toni & Guy salon in Winchester before moving to the United States in 1998. He worked at the Adam Broderick salon in Ridgefield, Connecticut, and settled in New York around 2000.