Angela Merkel: Cut above

Berlin, Sept. 30 (Reuters): Two top German hairdressers are fighting over who deserves the credit for Angela Merkel’s new hairstyle after the conservative leader traded a low-maintenance page-boy cut for a more stylish look just before the election.

Celebrity hairdresser Udo Walz, who has also cut Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s hair, and rival Martina Acht are claiming they did the Merkel makeover before her narrow win in a September 18 general election over Schroeder’s Social Democrats.

“She came to me for advice just before (President) George W. Bush came to Germany (in February) and ever since then her look has been completely different,” Acht, whose salon is in the western city of Offenbach, said.

“Since then, she seems so much more feminine,” added Acht, whose battle of the scissors against Walz has featured in tabloid newspapers this week.

But Walz, who is Germany’s best-known celebrity hairdresser, said from his Berlin studio that he has long been working on Merkel’s hair and that the 51-year-old has an appointment with him every four weeks. “Martina Acht might have used a blowdryer on my client’s hair, but she did not cut it,” Walz said. “There are always people around who want to jump on the bandwagon.”