Her first job was on a Gorbals fruit and veg stall and she once had ambitions to become an air hostess and see the world.

But Rita Rusk also idolised her eldest sister Helen, a hairdresser. “I always thought she was amazing,” she wrote in notes for an autobiography she had started to draft.

In the end she did see the world – but only after following in her sister’s footsteps and going on to become Scotland’s First Lady of Hairdressing with a global reputation for her artistry and a fierce entrepreneurial streak.

Rita Rusk – the stylist’s stylis and a hairdreser’s hairdresser

Rita was born at home in the Gorbals area of Glasgow, in the aftermath of the Second World War and at a time when the neighbourhood had a reputation for appalling poverty, overcrowding and dreadful living conditions. She was one of ten children to parents Peggy Murphy and her husband Francis, a car salesman, and earned her first wages on that local stall. The Murphy family left the Gorbals to be rehoused in the new housing scheme of Castlemilk where, unlike the crumbling tenements, the homes had their own bathrooms.

Educated at Glasgow’s Holyrood Secondary School, by the time she was 16, Rita was training as a hairdresser in a salon owned by her cousin in Glasgow’s Bath Street. She met her first husband Irvine Rusk, a hairdresser in the city’s West End, a couple of years later. They married in Glasgow in 1969 and immediately opened their own salon in Hamilton, the first of four.

They had no idea how successful it would become and just pitched themselves into the business, focusing on hard work and honing their skills. Rita’s outward-looking attitude, entrepreneurial spirit and sense of style were also important components in the business’s success. She constantly kept her eye on what was happening on the streets and was always interested in people and what they were doing.

Although intensely proud of her working-class roots she was also fascinated by the world beyond Glasgow – and it with her. Soon she and Irvine were making their mark at trade events, presenting shows and infiltrating the London hairdressing scene. One of their early appearances was at Salon International in 1976 – the year after their son James was born – when they presented an outrageous look called The Butterfly. They went on to present shows and appear at seminars across Europe, America and Japan. James remembers her setting off for events in a “flurry of fabulousness” armed with glamorous hair pieces and show clothes.

In 1987 she was the first woman to be named British Hairdresser of the Year, alongside her husband Irvine, and was four times declared Best Hairdresser in the World by French fashion magazine Metamorphose. Celebrity clients included actress Greta Scacchi and the Duchess of Kent.

The stylist for stylists and a hairdresser’s hairdresser, she trained countless youngsters in her trade – among them Sharlene Spiteri who went on to front the band Texas – passing on not only her techniques but her passion for the artistry of hairdressing.

She was also an enthusiastic inventor, developing new types of waving scissors featuring her alpha, beta, gamma and delta blades and creating the blueprint for the small, flat irons that are widely used today. Always looking for a concept she could turn on its head, she decided to redesign previously cumbersome large flat irons into a more manageable product that people could use themselves at home. She sold the idea to Babyliss and was particularly proud of that achievement. A later invention was The Wire, a brush tool.

Irvine and Rita, whose other salons were in Glasgow, East Kilbride and Clarkston, split up in the late 1980s and she subsequently operated as Rita Rusk International. She married her second husband, lawyer Brian Dorman, in the 1990s.

She taught, did training videos and used her humble roots to try to inspire others to achieve. Despite her success, in 2010 Rita Rusk International was wound up following legal action over tax by HM Revenue and Customs.

She then took a step back from the business world, gave talks and reflected on her remarkable life, slowly retiring and taking the opportunity to spend more time with Brian. He died in 2014 and she moved into Glasgow’s West End, once again just getting on with life with her trademark independence and glamorous style, enjoying time with her family and friends.

Rita Rusk died following long-term kidney disease and is survived by her son James and his wife Louise, grandchildren Savannah and James, stepson Christopher, sisters Rosalyn, Anne and Helen and her brother Frank.

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Obituaries: Rita Rusk, Scottish hairdresser with a global reputation for artistry

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