Alexandre de Paris was among the first “hauts coiffeurs” who elevated hairdressing to an art form. In a career of more than 50 years he styled models for the great fashion houses and tended devotedly to an impressive collection of celebrity clients, including Greta Garbo, Lauren Bacall, Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor — who owed to him her wide-fringed hairstyle in the 1963 film epic Cleopatra, which was much copied.

It has been said that Alexandre combined a sense of theatre and aesthetics with formidable technical skill (he won numerous prizes), but the key to his success, he believed, was in matching the hair to the personality. No doubt his idiosyncratic glamour contributed too: he was once described as looking like “a cross between a P. G. Wodehouse character and Salvador Dalí”.

Louis Alexandre Raimon was born in St Tropez in 1922, and as a child styled dolls’ hair, and that of his mother and grandmother. In 1938 he was apprenticed, in Cannes, to Antoine, who became famous as Antoine de Paris — becoming his “premier garçon”.

In 1946 he styled the hair of the wife of the Aga Khan, the Begum Aga Khan, on her wedding day. Among the guests was the Duchess of Windsor (formerly Wallis Simpson), who rang Alexandre the next day and asked him to do her hair. “She gave me a thousand explanations as to what she wanted,” he said later. He did the opposite, “knitting” her hair into a short, rather austere, waved style — and she was delighted. “For the first time in my life,” she told him the next day, “I woke up with my hair exactly as it was when I went to sleep. From now on, you will stay by my side.” He remained her hairdresser for 30 years.

She took him under her wing, introducing him to hundreds of new clients and in 1952 he was able to open a salon on Rue du Faubourg St-Honoré in Paris with the Carita sisters — who became known as “magicians of beauty”. In 1957 he opened his own salon in the same street.

His reputation spread rapidly and in 1961 he dressed the hair of Jackie Kennedy with a chignon studded with diamonds for the dinner General de Gaulle was giving in honour of her husband. When Elizabeth Taylor visited the salon, Alexandre cut her waist-length hair short. Princess Margaret and Princess Grace of Monaco also became clients. (A selection of pictures and letters from him were included in The Grace Kelly Years exhibition held in Monaco in 2007.)

For many he was indispensable. When Elizabeth Taylor became ill during the filming of Cleopatra, he flew to London immediately, at her request: “There, in her hospital bed, she was held up by three nurses while I created her famous artichoke cut,” he said. He was also close to the solitary Garbo: “When she came into the salon she would say ‘Hide me!’. ”

The many other luminaries he tended included the Rothschild baronesses, Queen Sirikit of Thailand, the Comtesse de Paris, the Empress of Iran — and such stars as Audrey Hepburn, Maria Callas, Liza Minnelli, Romy Schneider and Shirley MacLaine. From many of his clients he collected a lock of hair to be preserved in perspex. Alexandre was also sought after as a high-fashion stylist, working at the Yves St Laurent show for more than 30 years and for such designers as Gianfranco Ferrè for Dior, Givenchy, Christian Lacroix and Karl Lagerfeld, who said he was “a true artisan with magic fingers”. (Alexandre’s assistant once said, “He is so quick: I pass him the pins and it is as though they grow from his fingertips.”)

In 1971 Alexandre created a collection of luxury accessories starting with bows, clips and headbands and later including combs, brushes, wedding veils and costume jewellery. In the 1990s Alexandre de Paris boutiques opened in Paris, Hong Kong and Melbourne. Alexandre opened a second Paris salon, in Avenue Matignon, in 1982. “I express myself through hair. I can translate my dreams,” Alexandre once said. His friend Jean Cocteau, called him “le Sphinx de la Coiffure” — referring to his wisdom and mystery — and the sphinx was adopted as Alexandre’s official emblem. But Alexandre was not above giving straightforward advice: he said that women should change shampoo every two months and give the hair at least 100 strokes with the hairbrush before bed.

Alexandre was the president of World Federation of Hairdressing from 1978 to 1993. He was awarded two French “Oscars de la mode”, in 1963 and 1969. He was also made a knight of the Légion d’honneur and a knight of the Order of Arts and Letters.

Alexandre de Paris was married and had two children.

Alexandre de Paris, hair stylist, was born on September 6, 1922. He died on January 12, 2008, aged 85