Andwhatbetter way to celebratedefeating theNazisthan witha
glamorous new hairdo?Victory rolls were the pinnacle of post-
warhair, namedafter theloopsfighter pilots would dointhesky
following victoryinbattle.Thehairstyle–big, sleekcurlspinned
up around the top of the head – was pretty high-maintenance,
involving finicky techniques and pins to keep it in place, but
dames made do with limited resources by rolling their strands
around headbands made from old stockings. Hair trends in the
West were about to get bigger (the bouffant – a lofty, rounded
style achieved by backcombing, and originally made popular
byMarie Antoinette in the 18th century– wasn’t far off), but in
China, they weregettinga whole lot shorter.
Hair had always been a bigdeal in China, havingbeen valued
as much as the body itself (from 770 to 476 BCE, ‘sinners’ were
required to shave their heads, apunishment considered worse
than physical torture because it insulted the soul). Duringthe
years of the Republic of China – 1912 to 1949 – hairstyles were
strictly policed; pigtails, for example, were illegal. Then came
Communism, and with it a new must-have style for Chinese
women: the bob. Known as the‘liberation hairdo’, the short style
didn’t signify a propensity for smoking and wiggling one’s bottom
to Duke Ellington, as it had during the time of the flappers, but
rather that the bob-wearing woman was liberated – her own
master, as it were.
It’s hard to believe that these ladies enjoyed much freedom,
though. By the time Chairman Mao launched his “cultural
revolution” in the ’60s, any lasses sportinglongbraids had to
chop them off, lest they be seen as anythingbut hard-boiled
revolutionaries (one braid was considered feudalistic;two,
capitalistic). And you could forget wavy perms altogether
- the style that Chinese ladies had become rather fond of
duringthe ’50s was now deemed the epitome of capitalism.
Even shoulder-length hair was seen to be supportive of
‘revisionism’ – a more relaxed,watered down view of Marxism,
and thus totally unacceptable. Indeed, the only safe hairstyle to
have at this time was the ‘movement hairdo’ – a super-short bob- otherwise you’d risk such punishments as a ‘yin-yang head’,
where half your hair was shaved off.
Back in the West, the state of women’s hair couldn’t have been
more different. Hippies were growing their locks as long as they
would go; refusing to wash them; and adorning them with flowers
as a nod to‘flower power’ – a symbol of their counter-cultural,
war-opposing, drug-appreciating ways. This free-flowing hairstyle
allowed a lady (or fella) to explicitly give ‘The Man’ the middle
finger – since The Man was typically short-haired, clean-shaven
and sending young’uns over to Vietnam to blow up a small part of
the country. At the same time, the bouffant grew to heights that
would have made Marie Antoinette proud (and possibly slightly
intimidated). The beehive had arrived, and it was all thanks to a lady
by the name of Margaret Heldt – a beautician from Chicago who had
long dreamed of designing a hairstyle that would fit under a fez hat.
Immediatelyafter thebeehive madeitsfirst appearanceina
1 960 edition of a trade rag calledModern Beauty Shop,the style
enjoyed widespreadpopularity – inpart due to the celebrities who
wore it (Dusty Springfield, Aretha Franklin and Brigitte Bardot
amongthem), and in part due to the fact that, rather conveniently,
it would stay in place for days at a time. (Usinglitres of hairspray
will have that effect.) Accordingto Margaret, no one should come
between a woman and the architectural triumph that is her
beehive: “I used to tell myclients, ‘I don’t care whatyour husband
does from the neck down, but I don’t want them to touch you
from the neck up.’” African-American lasses were also relishing
a large-scale new hairstyle, but this wasn’t just a rad ’do – it
signified some serious shit.
Slavery may have been abolished duringthe 19th century in
theStates, but black folks still felt obliged to blend into white
society. This meant makingthemselves look whiter, starting
with their hair. But how do you naturally straighten African hair?
You can’t – which is why Madam C.J. Walker became the first
self-mademillionairessinAmerica,andone ofthe most
successful African-American businesspeople ever. She sold
hair-straighteningproducts for black people, who felt so pressured
into lookingEuropean that they’d often use hot chemical mixtures
that would almost burn their scalps. Leaders of the civil rights
movement in the 1960s rejected this craziness andgrew their hair
into afros – or ‘naturals’, as they were also known.The ’fro stood for black pride, and by the ’7 0 s – thanks to the rise
ofBlaxploitation movies suchasShafttandFoxy Brown– they’d
become synonymous with black bad-assery. Indeed, the afro
pick–a comb required to keep the afro looking ace – came with a
handle shaped like a fist. This was, in fact, the Black Power salute,
so even hair accessories were resisting white supremacy. Of course,
the’fro wasn’ttheonlyconfrontationalhairstyleofthe era.Inthe
latter half of the ’70s, punk girls were spiking their brightly dyed
locksinto mohawks – an expression ofdisgustfor andrebellion
against mainstream society – and lasses who belonged to‘sharpie’
gangshereinAustraliasnippedtheirhair super-short, as a way to
distinguish themselves from their enemies:‘long hairs’.Another rebellious look was (and is) the shaved head,one
that Grace Jones claims led directly to her first orgasm.
“Myshaved head made me look more abstract; less tied to a
specific race or sex or tribe,” she says. Sinéad O’Connor shaved her
head for different reasons: to make herself appear as unattractive
as she possibly could, in order to avoid the unwanted sexual
advances of record executives. Either way, a lady shavingoff her
mane makes a powerful statement – that she is reclaimingcontrol
over her body. But there are infinite ways to make the same
statement. The natural hair movement – pioneered over the past
1 0 years by the likes of bloggers Afrobella and Curly Nikki – is all
about ditchingthe straighteningirons and embracingyour
natural locks. Less a political statement and more an expression
of self-love,natural hair is nevertheless a tribute to the afro
wearers of yore, and proof that sometimes a radical form of
protest makes no noise at all.no one
should come
between
a woman
and the
architectural
triumph
that is her
beehive
learn something new