new thread
I was having this interesting conversation with some older dude about 60+ who still has long hair and he showed me some old photos from his school year books and said "this is the way the guys and girls wore their hair"
so I got to asking him this question about guys styles had seemed to return to the early 1960s "mad men" era or earlier while the younger women of today didn't want to "look like the Grandmothers" as he said, preferring not to emulate those styles such as June Cleaver or Ann Landers that make the women's hair on "Mad Men" tv series look like ultra-cool punk styles by comparison and I asked him "Why did many guys want to return to these 1950s type haircuts" instead of going to salons like they did in the 1980s?
He shrugged and said "well, I sure didn't want to go back to looking like Beaver, Wally Cleaver or Eddie Haskel or in my case Ward Cleaver and I guess some may consider me a 'throwback' , but in my opinion those guys are more throwbacks with their flattops, crewcuts and 'regular' haircuts then I am"
he also said "by the late 1960s we all starting viewing these as appropriate for our Fathers, but not our generation and the haircuts became associated with old foggies by the 1980s which I wish they were still associated with!"
I asked him why women did not return to those "June Cleaver" type hairstyles and his response was
"Because I guess women are smarter than Men!" he laughed
I told him that I agreed with what he said and it was my goal to grow out my hair which I had been doing for nearly three months from my last buzz which I don't ever intend on getting again even if pressured into it.
anyway, how would you guys summarize why many guys chose to go back to the traditional "Leave it to Beaver" era styles and do you think the day will come that guys will begin to see these haircuts as "old Men's hair" again or will that day come when we are all old and in our twilight years and will it come that soon?
note: this was not intended as an insult to any seniors here with long hair, but more of the state of mind this older guy was referring to which was more reflective of the WW II generation and older.
Your post suggests a great retort to shorthaired people who tell a longhair, "You're still living in the sixties." It is, "So, you're still living in the FIFTIES!"
Bill
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Well, I'm not quite 60 yet, and I definitely remember the era when there were standard looks for men and women - more specifically, when I was that age, for boys and girls. Until the early 60s, and the influence of the Beatles ("to quote my grandmother "Oh, how dreadful; all that screaming"), people suddenly discovered that they had choices. It was certainly at that point that I realised that if I wore clothes that I liked, and wore my hair the way I wanted, the world wasn't going to come to an end. Even 50 years later, there are distinct groups of people; those who follow one (or more) of the many trends (that would cover most of the people whose influences you describe), and others who do their own thing, but at least to some extent owe that freedom to the pioneers who branched out in their own direction.
One example. Although lots of men had quite substantially long hair in the 60s and 70s, it was rare to see any kind of updo - I probably only saw half a dozen ponytails in that time, no braids that I remember and one bun. Now all three are relatively commonplace. That, to me, represents a development of mixed influences.
To come back to your question. I don't think any one era is the predominant style which either gender looks back to, but amongst those who follow trends, different influences will come and go as time goes on.
I still see 50s haircuts as old men's hair, but I am fast becoming the old man myself.
Styles get recycled, but the fashion industry has a knack of recycling the worst rather than the best. It is fashionable to decry 70s fashions as bad, but the early 70s are my favourite era. Of course, excluding leisure suits and disco attire, which really were awful. At that point I was beginning to think men's fashions were making real progress, but then everything slumped back into much older styles after the punk movement blew over, and we haven't recovered since.
Maybe I am getting the wrong impression, but it sounds like you're putting some blame on the 1970s punk movement. I always saw them as sort of outsiders and iconoclastic and will admit to liking some 1970s punk and 1980s post-punk musical styles as well as other genres which began as offshoots such as Gothic Rock, which seem to have the highest proliferation of longhaired Males at the moment even when some Metal guys have gone to short or shaved their heads.
Goth people for the most part seem to be the most "long hair friendly" subculture anymore from what I have experienced.
I just can't visualize a guy with an bright Red mohawk or multi-colored spike hair having much of an influence on bringing back these conservative 1950s Men`s hairstyles. their ideology seems to run counter to that.
wouldn't the Neoconservative movement and/or the Yuppies of the 1980s be more of the influence that brought back these traditional barber cuts?
also, for the record I like some of those early 1970s hairstyles.
"while the younger women of today didn't want to "look like the Grandmothers" as he said, preferring not to emulate those styles such as June Cleaver or Ann Landers"
http://tinyurl.com/cnowuq3
http://tinyurl.com/cp5scdn
http://tinyurl.com/728zedo
http://tinyurl.com/82aw8yp
http://tinyurl.com/782aeve
http://tinyurl.com/7gozt8g
http://tinyurl.com/cuz6dw7
no, I could not see myself wearing any of those styles. some of the era styles are o.k, but some remind me of Marge Simpson and others sort of look like Ann Landers lady that you mentioned.(I googled her ;-))
the styles do not appear natural looking to me and a bit too "stiff".
anyway, I did get my haircut off today and if anyone wants to know what type of style it is
it is similiar to this one
http://tinyurl.com/7travew
not quite as short as Emma's , but short enough and not a style I plan to keep indefinitely , but just wanted to try.
as for guys going back to "Mad men" styles I cannot say whether a buzzcut was really in during that era or not since I was not around then, but I do wish more guys would grow their hair longer.
at least to shoulder length!!
Wish granted.
Me to :-)
I would mention that I was around during that era, (Born in 1954,
i'm 57 now) and it was in 1964 when I started to grow my hair
long after seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show. And as they say the rest is history.
These hairstyles were worn by the types of females that Frank Zappa sang about in his song "Plastic People" back in the 1960s.
women came to the realization like many Men did that longer loose hair was more natural looking and required less maintenance than those hideous "Bouffant" type hairdos which required a ton of hairspray to maintain.
Long hair is not only natural. it looks a lot better and those who wear it do not contribute to environmental pollution the way those awful spelling hairsprays did back then that the girls used on their hair and they did use a lot!
thank God those styles died out!
they not only stunk to high heaven, but looked awful!!
~peace and love~
Jerry
I wonder if there is a practical reason for this, I mean as guys age our hair tends to become thinner, as such there's a limit to the number of short styles which will work.
I mean if you have short thinning hair you can't really go for an 80s salon style. Or a 90s wedge. Modern messy spiky styles tend not to work either as they sit better on younger shoulders.
What are your options? Longer care-free styles of the 60s or 70s or the short back and sides of the 50s?
I turned 60 this last August. I have been growing my hair out for about the past three years. I look a lot older when I have short hair, and that is not a road that I want to go down.
Steve
You bring up a good question. I was a kid in the '60s and have lived through the subsequent eras (and hairstyles). As for women, things are a fair bit different for them today than back then. In mid century, far fewer women worked and far more were housewives, essentially subservient to men. Now far more women are in the workforce and have much less time for high maintenance beautyshop dos. Thus women tend to go for easy-to-style looks or extensions or the such.
We live in a time with far more demands and distractions than in past decades. A lot of guys just don't want to be bothered with hair, so they just buzz it. But one constant about culture and fashion is that just as soon as something seems out, it's back.
Society is really too diverse these days for everyone to look the same, though. I think in the future guys will still mostly wear short hair/buzz cuts while a strong minority will wear long hair and both ways will be OK.
They are concerned with being criticized for growing their hair longer so they play it safe and go to the barbershop.
if and when the majority of guys grow their hair long(er) again then those getting barber cuts will grow theirs out to blend it.
those of us who grow our hair longer are not among the sheep and we don't care what the majority think. we just grow it because we want to and because it looks a lot better than those "1950s" type haircuts.