Hairstylist Vidal Sassoon, who liberated women with his wash-and-wear cuts, died on Wednesday at 84.

The British-born hairdresser had battled leukemia since 2009, and died at his home on Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles.

As the fashion world learns of his loss, Sassoon's influence on the industry and on pop culture is being remembered.

Since he picked up his first pair of shears in the 1950s, Sassoon came to be known, as mini-skirt designer Mary Quant once dubbed him, the Chanel of hair design.

Just as Coco Chanel freed women with her little black dress, Sassoon broke past the bondage of stiff, lacquered beehives of the 1950s.

"My idea was to cut shape into the hair, to use it like fabric and take away everything that was superfluous. Women were going back to work, they were assuming their own power. They didn't have time to sit under the dryer anymore," Sassoon said in 1993 in the Los Angeles Times.

Sassoon opened his first salon in London in 1954, where he honed his wash-and-wear philosophy. Once that concept took hold, in the 1960s, women began abandoning their rollers and bobby pins around the world.

Sassoon first gained international notoriety in 1963 when he introduced the 5-piont hairstyle, a clean, geometric update of the classic Bob.

In 1966, Sassoon pushed boundaries further by creating a curly style inspired by 1920's film star Clara Bow for the French fashion designer, Emanuel Ungaro.

Next came Sassoon's groundbreaking pixie cut created for star Mia Farrow in the 1968 film, "Rosemary's Baby."

With that one cut Sassoon's fame exploded, turning him into the rock star of hair shears and sending celebrity's flocking to his Bond St. salon in London.

From model Jean Shrimpton to actors Terence Stamp and the Duchess of Bedford, VIPs entrusted themselves to Sassoon and his vision while hairstylists worldwide copycatted his looks.

Those looks included a short, layered cut which Sassoon called The Shape.

Sassoon also created the iconic "Nancy Kwan" cut, which was worn longer in the front that in the back.

"Sassoon revolutionized the way everybody wears their hair today, he also made British hairdressing the best in the world, he was my hero," fellow hairdresser Lee Stafford told the BBC.

Others, such as New York salon owner Oscar Blandi called Sassoon "the most innovative person ever to enter the industry," and credited him for leading the way for the celebrity stylists of today.

"RIP Vidal Sassoon," tweeted celebrity stylist Tabatha Coffey. "Thank you for all you have done for our industry and for me," she wrote.

Sassoon opened more salons in England and expanded to the United States before also launching his own line of shampoos and styling products. Sassoon's advertising slogan was as simple as his cuts: "If you don't look good, we don't look good."

The hairstyling legend also established the Vidal Sassoon Academies in England, the United States, Canada, Germany and China to teach aspiring stylists how to cut hair based on a client's bone structure.

Sassoon wrote three books. The first was an autobiography, "Sorry I Kept You Waiting, Madam," published in 1968. "A year of Beauty and Health" (1979) and "Cutting Hair the Vidal Sassoon Way" (1984) followed.

These accomplishments, including an appointment as Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2009, stood in stark contrast to his upbringing.

Sassoon was born to Jewish parents in London on January 17, 1928. His father, a womanizer, abandoned the family when Sassoon was three years old.

The hair king also spent time in an orphanage, living there for seven years until his impoverished mother remarried when Sassoon was 11.

Yet fortune ultimately favoured Sasoon, who lived by a simple motto: "To sculpt a head of hair with scissors is an art form. It's in pursuit of art."