1960's Beauty Trend and Hair Style

Fashion in the 1960s saw a lot of diversity and featured many trends and styles influenced by the working classes, music, independent cinema and social movements.

In the UK, the fashion focus shifted from Paris to London, with designer Mary Quant leading the “Swinging London” revolution. Vidal Sassoon transformed women’s hairdressing, taking the humble bob and reinventing it to suit the mood of the decade.

Here we look at 1960s hairstyles, the influences and popular accessories.

Influences on Hair Fashions

The impeccably groomed American First Lady Jackie Kennedy (later Onassis) influenced a whole generation with her elegant outfits, bouffant do and pillbox hats. Elements of the “Jackie O” style are still admired and imitated today.

Movie Stars

Since the dawn of film, movie stars have been influential on fashion trends. During the 1960s, New Wave cinema and Italian films in particular influenced popular culture and catapultedBrigitte Bardot, arguably the ultimate ’60s siren, to international stardom.

Other iconic actresses of the era include Julie Christie, Catherine Deneuve, Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Birkin – all with their own style and signature look.

Hairdressers

Hairdressers have always developed new hairstyles and influenced hair fashions.The new decade welcomed the voluminous beehive, created by a Chicago-based hairdresser, followed by the advent of sharp, short crops by Vidal Sassoon, the hairdressing star of the ’60s.Sassoon created iconic styles and popularised short hair with geometric and asymmetrical cuts that revolutionised women’s hairstyling.

The cutting-edge Sassoon styles were fresh, sleek and sharp – and the looks were imitated around the globe. Style guru Mary Quantand actresses Mia Farrow andNancy Kwan all had Sassoon cuts.Other hairdressers include Louis Alexandre Raimon, who created Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatralook and styled movie stars like Greta Garbo and Audrey Hepburn, and Raymond Bessone, who trained Vidal Sassoon and is believed to have influenced the modern bouffant.

Mia Farrow sporting her Vidal Sassoon cut, created for her role in Rosemary’s Baby (Life magazine, May 1967)

Music

Music also had a big impact on fashion and hairstyles. Since the late 1950s, the styles worn by the rock and roll singers and popular bands of the era were embraced by lovers of the music, and teenagers developed their own “street fashion”.

This influence continued right through the ’60s, from the über-fashionable mods, through to the psychedelic sounds of the later sixties.The Beatles famous early ’60s “moptop” hairstyle influenced men’s (and quite probably women’s) hairstyles for a generation and is synonymous with the ’60s.

In the second half of the decade, political activism, social changes and psychedelic rockmusic led to hair for both sexes becoming longer and left more natural, in keeping with the carefree yet radical attitudes of the hippie subculture.

(L to R) Style icon Jackie Kennedy with flicked up bouffant and  pill box hat; Brigitte Bardot with a messy beehive; Sleek and timeless Sophia Loren; Nancy Kwan with her famous Vidal Sassoon cut (photo: Terence Donovan)

References:

H&MUA Team. (March 2012). Women’s 1960s Hairstyles: An Overview.Available: http://hair-and-makeup-artist.com/womens-1960s-hairstyles/. Last accessed October 2015.

Corson, R. 2000.  Fashions in Hair: The First Five Thousand Years. Peter Owen. 720pp.

Sherrow V. 2001. For Appearances’ Sake: The Historical Encyclopedia of Good Looks, Beauty and Grooming.Greenwood. 288pp