A clean cut, almost a symbolic gesture to leave behind a year of great change. Giorgio Locatelli decided to shave his head immediately after finishing taping the new season of MasterChef Italy. It's a very different look from what viewers have become accustomed to in recent years, and, the chef himself explains, it came at a particularly intense time in his life: "I lost my mother, we closed the Locanda Locatelli and opened in the National Gallery in London. There have been so many changes. I thought a haircut would be perfect too."

"I don't know how it came to me," she said in an interview with Corriere della Sera. "Some people see it as an act of courage. Maybe they think that if you cut it, it won't grow back? In reality, everyone's hair grows back. For a long time, because I hate going to the hairdresser, I'd let it grow for a year or two and then cut it completely. I always started over, because it gave me a great feeling of freedom, of change, of new ideas."

Meanwhile, the Vergiate-born chef, who has been living in London for years, continues to thrive on both sides of the Channel. After nine years on MasterChef Italy, Locatelli also competed for the first time on Celebrity MasterChef UK.

(Unioneonline/D)