Vintage Beauty - 60s Hair

Here in North Queensland it's hot. Most of the time. Now that my hair is longer, I tend to wear it up every day - it takes me about two minutes to do a French roll with bobby pins, and I don't have to worry about 'the frizz' caused by the humidity.

I do dream about short hair though.  In reality, however, it takes much more work than long hair - mine always needs wetting and re-drying in the morning - and you have to get it cut more often to keep the style. And is short hair vintage?  Well it can be - think Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Kennedy (these shots from 1962).

  

Of course these lovely ladies have very natural colored hair, but along with short hair came the desire for interesting colours.

1962 ad

I actually quite like this style - but I know the fringe would never sit like that for me, and she probably had to use gallons of hairspray!

Short hair was very popular in the 60s, but you didn't just get it cut short, you had it styled - you could get 'the Jackie' or 'the Audrey', or even 'The Cabbage' or "the Chou.'

They look like quite a bit of work!  but of course in the 60s help with styling at home was at hand - with the hair-dryer!

1964

I remember my mum using one of these when I was little....I must try and find a photo......

Now of course we have straighteners, curlers, instylers etc, but why is it (most of ) us women feel the need to change our hair style and color so often?  Seriously - I have only one friend in her 40s who has never coloured her hair - and she's had the same long straight style since her 20s.  I in the meantime have been straight and long, curly and bobbed, pixie cut, many shades of blond, brunette, black, red and even purple.  I think now I am naturally grey, but I'll give it a few more years before I let it take over.  

What about you? Natural, short, long or none?

Vintage Beauty - Dali Does Hair, 1959

Born in Figueres, Spain in 1904, Salvador Dali is probably best known for his moustache, his technical skill as a painter and the shocking quality of his imagination. Put those all together and you get Dali the hairstylist!  

In 1959 Dali worked with Peter Leonardi, formally the hairdresser to Marilyn Munroe, to produce some modern, space age hair-dos.

Salvidor Dali under the hood, 1959 

Dali apparently began the designs with inspiration from his then new method of painting - using machine gun bullets to delineating an outline.  He of course did this in an orderly fashion, placing each bullet with care. He did actually once criticise Picasso's paintings as being 'painted with the speed of a machine gun." 

Dali wondered why women had been conteneted so long with their'prosaic' hair dos, and believed that his 'Bullet' hairstyle would one day become common place, with the hair serving as antenna for portable phones and tvs.

The bullet hairstyle

via

He really was ahead of his time, wasn't he?! Are you ready to try this vintage look?

Dali's other space age hair style included "The French Bread," (left)  and "Miss Sea Urchin".  Here's my attempt at Surrealism -

Have a look here for some modern spiky hair inspiration.


References and further reading-

The Dali Musuem
Dali & I: The Surreal Story By Stan Lauryssens