Hear
“My wife just died“. Shaken but calm, Michael Romano confirmed this Friday to THE NATION the death of someone who was his life partner for almost seven decades, Mercedes Lopez ParedesAccording to the stylist himself, the 85-year-old woman had been very ill for some time.
In interviews, Romano always made it clear how important “Meme,” his wife, had been at the beginning of his career. “I liked doing things well, making customers happy. Of course that led me to become known, fame came later, but I almost didn’t realize it, it was a slow process. AND ‘Meme’, my wife, with whom I had just started dating at the time, had a lot to do with it.“, he told this medium in August.
“We met as teenagers at a gym where she danced Spanish. She worked as a babysitter in a doctor’s house and I offered her to come with me to the salon, I told her that I was going to teach her her trade. She started out as a manicurist. She was a very beautiful woman, with a spectacular face and hair. Shortly after, a contest was opened to choose the model for a photo novel and I did not hesitate to present her. I took a photo of it and sent it. Not only did they accept her, but after several pre-selections she was the winner among more than 1,500 girls,” explained the hairstylist who once styled stars such as Susana Giménez, Nacha Guevara, Graciela Borges, Tita Merello, Sophia Loren and even Freddie Mercury himself. , during the visit of the Queen group to Argentina, in 1982.
“It was always in pairs, but be careful, at that time she earned 10 times more than me, my hairdresser was very humble. I insist, mine was a process, because at that time salons only did cuts and perms until, some time later, I implemented hairstyles with my wife’s figure,” Romano said in the interview. “In all the presentations, events and trips I attended over the decades, my wife was always by my side. I am a good-natured man and we have great camaraderie.”.
The remains of López Paredes will be laid to rest with a funeral this Saturday, at 10:30, in the Pilar Peace Garden.
For a few days, the version was circulating that Romano was ready to close his now legendary salon located at the Anasagasti al 2000 passage, in the heart of Palermo. However, the stylist denied the version to THE NATION categorically: “I’m not retiring, I continue. What we are doing is changing the hair salon so that more hairdressers come. We are shrinking the places so that more clients can come in, and more hairdressers are coming”.
Currently, in the Romano salon he has the help of his daughter Paola and his granddaughter Antonella. “Today my life is calmer, although I work 12 hours a day. I don’t know how long I’ll have to live, but I’m happy with what I have,” she said in that interview published in August. “I have this job in my blood. I was very young when I started cutting hair and removing lice from the children of a tenement that was next to my house in Villa Urquiza. When I wanted to go to an academy to learn how to cut hair, I didn’t have the support of my dad, who said I was going to die of hunger. What a beast it was! As long as I stopped thinking about it, he forced me to work alongside my uncle as a bricklayer, something I did for a while, but I couldn’t stand it.
“My passion for hairdressing continued and I entered an academy. I remember that, during a test, someone told me: ‘You are more of a teacher than a student.’ I told my uncle, who loved me very much, and he helped me set up a very humble place, next to my parents’ house. Clients began to choose me very quickly, I became known in the area,” he said.
With the collaboration of Nieves Otero
THE NATION
