HAIRSTYLES
FROM CULTURE TO
FASHION STATEMENT
What’s hairdressing?
It’s the art of arranging hair
Hairstyles along history: social
and cultural significance
It’s been a signifier of:
• Class
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Authority and Power
General Overview
1
Necessity to cut or confine the
hair to keep it out of the way
2
Personal adornment
3
Status and Age
- Primitive men: fastened bones,
feathers and other objects.
Why ?
Impress and Frighten Enemy
- Noble Rank: long hair.
- Noble Rank after the conquest: short hair
- Boys in ancient Greece cut their hair
- Hindu boys shaved their heads when they
reached adolescence
4
Religious Significance
- the shaved heads of Christian and Buddhist
monks: renunciation of the world;
- England in the 17th century: cropped hair
and long curling locks
5
Last changes in hairstyles
- Influence of fashion
* Changes through the years
* Class
* Today: women and men in all classes
can choose the style and colour of their
own hair, or of a wig
I (always, normally) like to keep my hair short/long
I like to put my hair into a pony tail/twist/pig tails (often, sometimes)
I like it curly/straight/with-without gel
I like my hair to look spiky/soft/unkempt
History of Hair
From 3000BC to Present
Day
http://www.ukhairdressers.com/history%20of%20hair.asp
Egypt
• Noblemen and women: hair clipped
close to the head
• Curly black wigs donned for
ceremonial occasions (women’s wigs
were often long and braided,
adorned with gold ornaments)
• Men’s faces: shaved
Greece
• Women’s hair: long and pulled back
into a chignon (bun). May dyed their
hair red with henna and sprinkled it
with gold powder, often adorning it
with fresh flowers or jewelled tiara’s.
• Men’s hair: short and sometimes
shaved.
Rome
• Like Greek styles:
- Upper classes: use of curling irons and gold
power. Women often dyed their hair blonde or
wore wigs made from hair of captive civilization
slaves.
- Later: more ornate hairstyles with hair curled tight
and piled high on the head.
Hairdressing: more popular
slaves attended upper classes
public barber shops visits
The East
• Hair hidden in public:
- Men: turban or fez
- Women’s hair: veil
- Men and women: local public baths
China
• Unmarried Chinese girls: long hair
• Women: hair combed and tied up into a knot at
the nape.
• Men: front of head shaved
back of head with long and braided hair,
tied with black silk
Japan
• Males: front of the head shaved
back of head with hair pulled tightly into a
short stiff ponytail.
• Women:
- Medieval period: long and loose
- 17th century: more styled
Swept up from the nape of the neck and adorned
with pins and jewelled combs.
Geisha
Africa
• Many tribes, so many hairstyles
Easters Tribes: desert
Western Tribes: tropical rainforest
• African Masai
• Mangbetu
• Mursi tribes
America
• Native American Indians from:
– East Coast
– Great Plains
– Central America, Mexico (Aztec)
– Central America, southern
Mexico (Maya)
– Further South (Incas)
The Western World
15th Century (Renaissance
period)
• Upper class ladies
16th Century
• Queen Elizabeth: set the trends.
– white face powder and red wigs.
18th Century
• Elaborated wigs, mile-high coiffures
and highly decorated curls.
• White powdered wigs with long
ringlets.
• Big hair
Victorians
• Puritanical line
• Hair
1920
• Women: more free more
independent. Theatre and Cinema
• Emergence of short, bobbed and
waved styles
• Men’s hair remained short, but using
brilliantine and highly perfumed oils.
1980
• The “Age of Excess”: more freedom
of choice in styles and trends.
• A good hairdresser was an essential
part of this woman’s life. This
woman’s hairstyle reflected ‘control’,
a busy work life
Modern Hairdressing
Procedure
What does this show us?
• Different people throughout the world have
different ideas of what beauty is
• One is not necessarily better than the
other
• Your hairstyle is not the only way to look
great
TREAT EVERYONE EQUALLY AND
APPRECIATE DIFFERENCES!
Images taken from http://www.shutterstock.com/