Me and My Hair

Patricia Malcolmson

Description

Good hair day? Bad hair day? Hair has always evoked strong emotions.In this fascinating book, Patricia Malcolmson examines how British women over the past 150 years have managed their hair, from the extravagant styles of the late nineteenth century to the 'anything goes' attitude of today, taking in along the way the daring bobs of the 1920s, the wartime styles of women in uniform, the slavish copying of Hollywood stars, the beehive, the hippy and the Goth. In Me and My Hair you'll hear the voices of women from around Britain talking about their hair - whether it's their longing to have 'Shirley Temple' curls, the visits of the nit nurse, their first home perm, roasting under hood dryers, going platinum blonde, hilarious experiments with hair extensions, or fears of going grey.

Sujets

• Histoire

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 04 mars 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781909183162
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

Title Page
ME AND MY HAIR
A Social History
by
Patricia Malcolmson



Publisher Information
First published in 2012 by
Chaplin Books
1 Eliza Place
Gosport PO12 4UN
Tel: [phone]
www.chaplinbooks.co. uk
Digital edition converted and distributed in 2013 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Copyright © 2012, 2013 Patricia Malcolmson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder for which application should be addressed in the first instance to the publishers. No liability shall be attached to the author, the copyright holder or the publishers for loss or damage of any nature suffered as a result of the reliance on the reproduction of any of the contents of this publication or any errors or omissions in the contents.



Preface
This is a book that takes hair seriously - though I hope not too seriously. It shows how women have felt about their hair since the late nineteenth century, how the hairdressing industry grew from almost nothing to its current spectacular prominence, how changes in hairstyles have been linked to larger social changes since 1900, and how hair care has been closely tied to commerce, social psychology, and feminist attitudes (or their absence). Women often hold firm views about their own and other women’s hair. For generations hair has been linked to strong feelings - envy, pride, admiration, anxiety, even self-loathing. Hair is an important signifier of a woman’s ‘worth’, whether she is young or old or middle-aged. How a woman does her hair is not just a matter of style or a minor expression of taste, it is also testimony to her judgment and sense of self. Hair can speak volumes about the character and taste of its wearer.
There is a lot more to hair than meets the eye, and this book is intended to explore below the surface of ephemeral fashion. Hair always - whether consciously or not - makes a statement. I am concerned mainly with hair in Britain and how British women over the past 150 years have managed their hair . Me and My Hair e xplores the changes in hairstyles and the ways of treating hair - for hair cannot be ignored; it has always had to be treated in some way - and it links these changes to larger issues of Britain’s social history since the late nineteenth century. The sources for this history are, for the most part, magazines and newspapers, short stories and novels, diaries and memoirs, trade and commercial directories, interviews and oral history, and ephemera from different parts of Britain. The voices of women in the past are often heard in these pages, as are the voices of those trying to influence them - journalists, advertisers and professional hairdressers. Much of my research has been done in London, mainly at the British Library and its newspaper library in Colindale, and this research has been supplemented by visits to libraries and archives in other parts of Britain, of which the Mass Observation Archive at the University of Sussex is the most important. I have also benefitted from the resources of some excellent libraries in Canada, notably those at the University of Toronto and Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and also from the admirable Interlibrary Loans service both at the latter and through the Nelson Municipal Library in British Columbia, where I now live.
While British experiences predominate in this book, I have felt justified in ranging beyond Britain and citing evidence from other areas of the (mainly English-speaking) world. This is because the history of hair in modern times has often not been particularly defined by nationality. Styles and aspirations have tended to cut across national borders. What was done in, say, New York or Paris in one year was probably adopted in Brighton and Norwich and Bristol not long after. In the 1920s bobbed hair was prominent almost everywhere in the transatlantic world. A little later, machines for the permanent waving of women’s hair were pretty much the same in South London as in Spokane, Washington. Ideas about good looks and good hair in the 1950s and 1960s were not much different in Britain, Canada, and the United States. Given these realities, I have felt at liberty often to draw evidence from outside Britain, usually when I am virtually certain that experiences documented in North American sources would have been replicated in many parts of the United Kingdom. So, this is a book on British social history that is linked fairly often to social changes elsewhere in the modern world, because modernity - in art, architecture, graphic design, fashion, and much more - was inherently international, and new ideas and technologies spread easily and quickly from one country to another.
***
In the making of this book I have become indebted to so many people. My largest debt is to a man I met when I was 19 and to whom I have been married for 45 years (in the present age, no doubt a source of amazement). Bob is also a historian - a very encouraging one - and has provided much sound advice and practical assistance (with a touch of uxorious cajoling). He even volunteered to slog through a decade’s worth of the weekly magazine Hairdresser and Beauty Trade . Given his penchant for understatement, I’ll say no more. But I am grateful.
I also wish to thank my editor and the publisher of Chaplin Books, Amanda Field, for her interest in my work, and her enthusiastic response to my book proposal. Since our first meeting in September 2011, she has been reliably and constructively supportive. Her innovative ideas and insightful suggestions have made the production of this book a true collaboration.
Many individuals have given me the benefit of their reflections and insights, or pointed me to an interesting source, or perhaps kick-started a train of thought that otherwise might not have occurred. Among those who helped and whom I am pleased to thank are Janet Bailey; Jenna Bailey, whose thoughtful comments have helped to shape this book more than she probably knows; Katherine Baird of the London School of Fashion; Robert Bell of the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; Denise Brackett; Jamie Brooks of Brooks and Brooks, London; Trisha Buller and her colleagues at Cienté, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire; Sam Carroll; Fiona Courage and the excellent staff at the Mass Observation Archive at the University of Sussex; Jane Davey and her colleagues at the Ferris Research Library and Archives, Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, Spokane, Washington; Caroline Dyer and her colleagues and students at the College of West Anglia, King’s Lynn, Norfolk; Laura Fortier, Archivist, Touchstones Museum of Art and History, Nelson, British Columbia; the late eminent hairdresser and hairdressing educator, Joshua Galvin; Rita Galvin; Sindi Gordon; Harrods Archive; Kim Hartzell; Sandra Holtby, former Head, London School of Fashion; Camilla Hornby, formerly of Curtis Brown; Margaretta Jolly; Stuart Malcolmson; Debra McDermott and her colleagues and students at the Academy for Hairdressing in Bournemouth; Mary Ann McPhail; Bob Mitton; Jeff Moon of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario; Felicity Pope; Kevin Quinn, Pat Reid; Bill Robbins; Chavez Roddick of Bellacabello, Nelson, British Columbia; Krissy Sampy of Toni and Guy, London; Jessica Scantlebury; Peter Searby; Lydia Sharman; Sue Sharman; Dorothy Sheridan, former Head of Special Collections, University of Sussex; the late Pino Spadafora of Rapunzel, Toronto; Andrea Stark; Amanda Stewart of House of Attitudes, Cobourg, Ontario; Debbie Stirton; Nancy Sutherland; Kathleen and Joyce Tipper; Gail Wells; Gordon Wise of Curtis Brown; the staff members of the Music Department of the British Library, the Colindale Newspaper Library, and the National Art Library; and those British women who, in the spring of this year, supplied Chaplin Books with a lovely collection of photographs of various twentieth-century hairstyles. This book could not have been written without these many people’s diverse contributions.
Patricia Malcolmson
Nelson, British Columbia
July 2012



Chapter One
Hair Stories
‘She sits at her dressing-table and vigorously brushes her hair, a mop of copper-coloured curls, natural curls, as tight and springy as coiled steel. Some would say her hair is her finest feature, though Robyn herself secretly hankers after something more muted and malleable, hair that could be groomed and styled according to mood - drawn back in a severe bun like Simone de Beauvoir’s, or allowed to fall to the shoulders in a Pre-Raphaelite cloud. As it is, there is not much she can do with her curls except, every now and again, crop them brutally short just to demonstrate how inadequately they represent her character.’
(David Lodge, Nice Work , 1988, Part One, Chapter Two)
‘Her hair was a joy. It lay folded round her little well shaped head in waves and little curls formed in the damp air. It was black and burnished, as a bird’s wing.’
(Nella Last, in her Mass Observation diary, 4 April 1940, said of a young gypsy, ‘the loveliest girl I’d seen for a long time’)
‘If my hair’s alright, then I’m alright.’ Many women have felt - and still feel - this way. Hair is a vital aspect of a woman’s identity. It conveys so much about who she is or would like to be. Hair has been a source of pride and a source of agony. ‘My hair caused me misery and shame’, says British writer Jenny Diski, talking about how she felt as a young woman in the 1960s. [1] She undoubtedly had lots of company.
What is hair that is ‘alright’? What is alright in one decade is decidedly not alright a few years later. As the changes in hairsty