A bowl cut, also known as a pot haircut, or a mushroom cut, is a haircut where the hair is cut short on the sides and back and looking as though someone put a bowl on the head and cut off all the visible hair.

The most well known bowl cut wearer belongs to Moe Howard

Moe Howard

Moses Harry Horwitz , known professionally as Moe Howard, was an American actor and comedian best known as the leader of The Three Stooges, the farce comedy team who starred in motion pictures and television for four decades...

, who wore it as part of his "Three Stooges

Three Stooges

The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy act of the early to mid–20th century best known for their numerous short subject films. Their hallmark was physical farce and extreme slapstick. In films, the Stooges were commonly known by their first names: "Moe, Larry, and Curly" and "Moe,...

" persona until his death in 1975.

History

Historically this haircut was popular among common people of various nationalities as an easy and relatively neat cut by a non-professional. Indeed, it was done by putting a cooking pot of a fit size to the level of ears, and all hair below the rim was cut or even shaven off. In some cultures it was a normal type of haircut. In other cultures the bowl cut was viewed as an attribute of wealth

Wealth

Wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. The word wealth is derived from the old English wela, which is from an Indo-European word stem...

, signifying that the wearer could afford to visit a barber

Barber

A barber is someone whose occupation is to cut any type of hair, and to shave or trim the beards of men. The place of work of a barber is generally called a barbershop....

. The bowl cut is quite common among the Amish

Amish

The Amish , sometimes referred to as Amish Mennonites, are a group of Christian church fellowships that form a subgroup of the Mennonite churches...

, and is also seen among some indigenous tribes such as the Yanomamo.

Popularity

From the late twentieth century on, the haircut resurfaced as a counterculture style credited to the Beatles' moptop hairstyles and the Ramones

Ramones

The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group...

' early stylized bowl cuts. The bowl cut gained popularity in America among teenaged and pre-teen boys in the 1980s and the hairstyle was a veritable fad in some American locales. The popularity of the bowl cut faded in the early/mid-1990s.

More recently the style has re-emerged on the UK music scene along with the renaissance of the "shoegaze" and garage rock genres among young bands.