Big hair
Encyclopedia
Women's hairstyles labelled as "big hair" became fashionable during this period, with a poster of actress Farrah Fawcett
Farrah Fawcett
Farrah Fawcett was an American actress and artist. A multiple Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominee, Fawcett rose to international fame when she first appeared as private investigator Jill Munroe in the first season of the television series Charlie's Angels, in 1976...
becoming an iconic example. The fashion persisted with certain regional subcultures in the southern United States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
, and the styles are sometimes also associated with female country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
performers. It is also associated with the exaggerated stereotypical femininity
Femininity
Femininity is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with girls and women. Though socially constructed, femininity is made up of both socially defined and biologically created factors...
associated with drag queen
Drag queen
A drag queen is a man who dresses, and usually acts, like a caricature woman often for the purpose of entertaining. There are many kinds of drag artists and they vary greatly, from professionals who have starred in films to people who just try it once. Drag queens also vary by class and culture and...
s and similar gender performers.
For both genders, big hair became popular in the 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
and the early 1990s
1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
. The term is also used in the punk
Punk subculture
The punk subculture includes a diverse array of ideologies, and forms of expression, including fashion, visual art, dance, literature, and film, which grew out of punk rock.-History:...
, glam
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...
, goth
Gothic fashion
Gothic fashion is a clothing style worn by members of the Goth subculture; a dark, sometimes morbid, eroticized fashion and style of dress. Typical Gothic fashion includes dyed black hair, black lips and black clothes. Both male and female goths wear dark eyeliner and dark fingernails. Styles are...
and alternative culture
Alternative culture
Alternative culture is a type of culture that exists outside or on the fringes of mainstream or popular culture, usually under the domain of one or more subcultures...
s and is particularly associated with fashion of the 1970s and 1980s, or inspired by the period. From these origins, big hair became a feature of a number of Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese street and alternative fashions, including Harajuku
Harajuku
Harajuku is the common name for the area around Harajuku Station on the Yamanote Line in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo, Japan....
and ganguro
Ganguro
Ganguro is an alternative fashion trend of blonde or orange hair and tanned skin among young Japanese women that peaked in popularity around the year 2000. The Shibuya and Ikebukuro districts of Tokyo were the centers of ganguro fashion...
. Recently, big hair has made a resurgence into fashion in the 2010s
2010s
The 2010s, pronounced "twenty-tens" or "two thousand tens", is the current decade which began on January 1, 2010 and will end on December 31, 2019...
.
History
Wigs were popular in high society from the mid-17th to the late-18th centuries. Royalty, judges and high level officials wore wigs. Aristocrats were also known for wearing wigs as wigs were expensive during those times and needed maintenance. Powdered wigs were also worn, starting from the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. In the first half of the 17th century, especially in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, men of all classes wore their hair long and preferably curled. When Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
started compensating for his receding hairline with long, curly wigs around the mid-17th century, they became fashionable amongst the aristocracy and further developed in colour and style over the next 150 years. Women started to embrace elaborate powdered wigs in the 18th century as well, and the excesses of these hairstyles, sometimes even carrying miniature constructions (such as boats, and castles, executed in expensive materials such as gems, precious metals and silks), were a favourite subject among caricaturists
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
at the time. Later in the period, Madame de Pompadour
Madame de Pompadour
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, also known as Madame de Pompadour was a member of the French court, and was the official chief mistress of Louis XV from 1745 to her death.-Biography:...
lent her name to the pompadour hairstyle
Pompadour (hairstyle)
Pompadour is a tall style of men's haircut which takes its name from Madame de Pompadour.There are Latin variants of the hair style more associated with European and Argentine tango fashion trends and occasionally with late 20th century musical genres such as rockabilly and country.The pompadour...
.
During the same period, big hair or the lack of it became a potent political symbol in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The parliamentary party during the English Civil Wars became known as the Roundhead
Roundhead
"Roundhead" was the nickname given to the supporters of the Parliament during the English Civil War. Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I and his supporters, the Cavaliers , who claimed absolute power and the divine right of kings...
s, because they eschewed the long tresses of the royalist party, the Cavalier
Cavalier
Cavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I and son Charles II during the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration...
s. Charles Mackay
Charles Mackay
Charles Mackay was a Scottish poet, journalist, and song writer.-Life:Charles Mackay was born in Perth, Scotland. His father was by turns a naval officer and a foot soldier; his mother died shortly after his birth. Charles was educated at the Caledonian Asylum, London, and at Brussels, but spent...
observed that "In those days every species of vice and iniquity was thought by the Puritans to lurk in the long curly tresses of the monarchists, while the latter imagined that their opponents were as destitute of wit, of wisdom, and of virtue, as they were of hair. A man’s locks were the symbol of his creed, both in politics and religion. The more abundant the hair, the more scant the faith; and the balder the head, the more sincere the piety."
In the 19th century, showman P. T. Barnum
P. T. Barnum
Phineas Taylor Barnum was an American showman, businessman, scam artist and entertainer, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the circus that became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus....
displayed women with tall, teased, Afro
Afro
Afro, sometimes shortened to fro and also known as a "natural", is a hairstyle worn naturally by people with lengthy kinky hair texture or specifically styled in such a fashion by individuals with naturally curly or straight hair...
-like hair styles as "Circassian beauties
Circassian beauties
Circassian beauties is a term used to refer to an idealized image of the women of the Circassian people of the Northern Caucasus. A fairly extensive literary history suggests that Circassian women were thought to be unusually beautiful, spirited and elegant, and as such were desirable as concubines...
"; such styles were considered unusual enough at the time to make women who wore them into sideshow
Sideshow
In America, a sideshow is an extra, secondary production associated with a circus, carnival, fair or other such attraction.- Types of attractions :There are four main types of classic sideshow attractions:...
attractions.
As a social statement, big hair can be read as a sort of seeking after attention; it draws attention to the wearer's head. This aspect of big hair is related to its rise and fall in hairstyle fashions. Country musician and actress Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton
Dolly Rebecca Parton is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music. Dolly Parton has appeared in movies like 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias and Straight Talk...
was asked to tone down her big hair on the set of Steel Magnolias
Steel Magnolias
Steel Magnolias is a 1989 American comedy-drama film directed by Herbert Ross that stars Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis, Dolly Parton, Daryl Hannah and Julia Roberts....
; refusing to do so, she noted that "there's a big, crazy, larger than life personality in here".
Techniques
Depending on the specific style, hairstyles in the big hair categories may require a number of styling, cutting, or treatment techniques. Styling of punk and alternative big hair styles often requires backcombingBackcombing
Backcombing is a way of combing hair which is used to create volume as well as to create certain hairstyles. Backcombing means repeatedly combing the hair towards the scalp, causing the hair to tangle and knot up...
(teasing) and the liberal application of styling aids such as hair spray
Hair spray
Hair spray is a common cosmetic product that is sprayed onto hair to keep it stiff or in a certain style...
and hair gel
Hair gel
Hair gel is a hairstyling product that is used to stiffen hair into a particular hairstyle. The results it produces are usually similar to, but stronger than, those of hair spray and hair wax, and weaker than those of hair glue.-Types:...
, often in combination with the use of hair dryers. Crimping irons, perms
Permanent wave
A permanent wave, commonly called a perm, involves the use of chemicals to break and reform the bonds of the hair. The hair is washed and wrapped on a perm rod and waving lotion is applied with a base. This solution creates a chemical reaction that softens the inner structure of the hair by...
, hair rollers, or other techniques may also be required.