Has there ever been a more distinctive, generational style shift in our lifetimes than "set" hair?

I have that very same hairstyle and I'm only 25.

Why the fuck would gay men care about this?

I style my pubes that way. And pin curls that dangle from my nuts.

Until the 1960's, fashions in clothing, make-up, hair, and in just about everything else, reflected a socially encouraged desire to elevate yourself, to become more sophisticated.

From 1960's on, it was all about looking younger, younger, younger. Elevating one's self, becoming more sophisticated, was anathema. In came plastic surgery and bottle blonde septugenarians in tennis dresses. (Joan Van Ark, anyone?

You want a 'set' hair style designed to make the wearer look younger. It doesn't work well. Look at Donald Trump.

You cared enough to go into the thread and type out a response, so tell us r2.

What a great observation, R4. The hairstyle since the 1990s (Jennifer Aniston locks) might also reflect the fact that more women than ever comprise the workforce. Women just don't have the time today to "set" their hair.

[quote]Why the fuck would gay men care about this?

You do realize that the vast majority of these hairstyles were put on these women’s heads by gay men, do you not?

Many women today are into physical fitness. Structured sets don't go with sweating.

"...Until the 1960's, fashions in clothing, make-up, hair, and in just about everything else, reflected a socially encouraged desire to elevate yourself, to become more sophisticated.

From 1960's on, it was all about looking younger, younger, younger..."

I agree with others, great observation, R4. That would explain the current obsession with what I call "teen girlfriend hair" on women of all ages, the attempt at trying to re-create the simplicity of young, healthy hair that doesn't see a salon very often. It's not a bad look, it's just, as you've mentioned not a very sophisticated one and that's intentional.

R8 I can see that but honestly, when you look at pictures of crowds from the 1950's vs. today, which was the fitter time? Maybe people had more internal cholesterol problems, I don't know but being "fat" in 1935 meant you had to lose 20 lbs., not 100.

More than once my 92 yo mom asks out loud when the long hair style for women will end. She has been rocking the high and tight since the early 50s. She's not super judgey, in general, but it bothers her that women don't go for the mom hair anymore. She also suggests to me at least once a year to cut my hair even though mine is above my shoulders but below my ears.

I have a friend who has not washed her own hair in maybe 15 years. She goes every week to have it washed and blown out so although its not a short set 'do, she's keeping the standing weekly appointment alive.

I love this thread! Do not even think of coming between a woman of a certain age and her high and tight weekly shampoo, set, and dry under the hair dryer! Secured with plenty of hairspray.

It's also a very social engagement.

More more more!

The long loose hair of today is an historical aberration. Look at Western painting and sculpture and costume design going back to before the Greeks. Look at the earliest photography. If a woman's hair is not up and secured into the prevalent style, she is always either going to bed or insane. Long unsecured hair ended with childhood.

If you are young and were not around as this huge change was occurring, then it would be difficult to appreciate the magnitude of the change. "Letting one's hair down," connotes moving from something formal to something casual. The phrase came to be for a reason. We still recognize the meaning, but it has become entirely unmoored from its historical context. When was the last time you saw a bobby pin?

And we old queens saw it happen.

Low maintenance, wash-and-wear hair is one thing. It's a practicality, something many men (but not all) have taken for granted for a long time. It also usually has a defined shape and a moderate length that makes it easy to care for.

That's not what's going on now. We are in the age of fetishized "little girl" hair: post-menopausal women running around with waist-length extensions. Natural hair hideously overprocessed to lie flat, straight, "blown-out" looking. Colors not ever known to nature. Natural hair styled to look wiglike as possible. The dreaded center part on faces not flattered by center parts. Overly severe, incredibly unattractive looks achieved at great effort and expense. "Real Housewife" princess-doll hair.

Hairstylists have gotta pay the rent somehow, I guess, but it's definitely not about giving women beautiful, stylish haircuts anymore.

Poor Nicole: look what years of overprocessing have done to her hair.

Be advised that she wears wigs/extensions/hairpieces in almost all of her public appearances now.

Nicole ca.1999.

I am 50 and I think women are much more rigid about their hair now than they were 30 years ago. Black women have always been fastidious with their hair and now white women have caught on and get weaves and use wigs. It really is a very dated unnatural look. Tacky.

Nicole used to have a lot of hair. And a nose!

A bad look on Busy Philipps.

Does no one ever say, "You don't really have the FACE for that look...?"

I agree the long straight hair is past its expiration date. It's what straight men want. Or long with soft, loose curls. So boring.

Bah. Straight men want pussy. They don't give a shit about a woman's hairstyle. If she will let him at the poon, he's fine with anything.

My mom goes to a hairstylist that has been working at her neighborhood salon since the 50s. He gives her this poofy Betty Ford "do" that ages her about 10 years. I don't think she's ever washed her own hair in the last 30 years either.

A look that says "young, fresh, fertile, fun!"

ummm...

I think it's due for a comeback.

Women get their hair set now just in a different way. A lot of women in New York go to the salon and get wash and blow outs 1 to 2 times a week.

That's not a "set," R26. A wash and blow-out is a wash and blow-out.

"Set" implies curling of some form or other. As OP suggests, it's a lost art form.

I think it is timeless.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

The Marcel Wave was a popular hairstyle that women would wear during the 30s. Women would have to set their hair like this, and wear it for days at a time.

Long hair extensions on women in their 40s and 50s (GenXers) looks pathetic. No middle-aged adult women looks good with a childhood, teen or 20-something year old hairstyle. They look like insecure women; followers with no individuality.

I also wonder what is going to happen to their scalp and hair when they are older, after 10-20 years of having extensions and hair lightening. Doesn't that process and procedure long-term damage the scalp? Are they going to have to Trump it with a scalp comb-over to cover the bald spot that we all know is there but pretend otherwise?

I think the change to looser styles was more early 1970s than 1960s. I hate to use this example, but it wasn't until the 1970-71 season that "That Girl" ditched the sculpted look and let her hair down.

In 42 years of live i've never seen my mother wash her own hair. She ALWAYS went to her hairdresser. And her hairdo was quite simple.

I shudder to think what today's middle aged fraus are going to look like in their 60s, 70s and beyond with all their Botox and lip fillers and hair extensions and chemical processing. Plastic surgery and hair replacement techniques can only do so much to cover up the damage and in some cases can actually make the person look worse. Eeeks. I predict the 2030s and 2040s are going to be the start of a freak show.

R29, tell Glenn to take her lead from the ever glamorous Carmen dell'Orefice.

Wendy Williams who turns 55 this year looks awful with all that fake hair hanging off her shoulders. It makes her look older. It's obvious that its fake which really cheapens her look. Same for Goldie Hawn who is even older than Wendy. Ditto for most of the Real Housewives cast members. The hairstyle doesn't have to be real short to enhance their features but their hair is way too long for their aging faces and detracts from their appearance.

[quote] Do you think set hair, updated, can make a comeback?

No. Women are allowed to do better things with their time now.

If men are so nostalgic for set hair, then set your own fucking hair.

[quote] Can anyone suggest or post pictures of some good hairstyle ideas for a woman in her 80s?

....

r32 Cultural appropriation!

OMG. Jamie Lee is turning into the late Bar Bush's "spunky" kid sister @ R38.

How ugly women are.

R37 Why are you so angry? Women are going to groom, regardless of hairstyle and I'm just noticing a fascinating, cultural change that's very distinct. This thread isn't some kind of insult to women in general, it's more like a cultural anthropology topic: Have you noticed this change? Why do you think it happened? Etc...

R29 I know she's become a go-to suggestion but it's for good reason: Here's Helen Mirren in 2018. There's structure to this hairstyle but it's relaxed, which makes it look finished with low maintenance but it's not so sculpted that she'd need to go in for hair trims every week.

Very classic "set" hair vs. modern, more relaxed structure (but not "little girl" hair):

R35 Classic, commanding set hair!

Glenn is 60

Very interesting thread. I was born in 88 so I didn’t see this shift happen, I can only watch older movies for the previous hair trends. I think in addition to what everyone else said, the trend for longer more processed hair, while still demanding time at the hair dresser, gives an air of being lower maintence even when it isn’t, kind of like natural makeup vs more obvious makeup.

Set hair can reveal a woman's inner vixen, Greek goddess, or Earth mother.

I’m jealous of Jamie Lee. She didn’t have to go through menopause.

Set hair!

Whatever happened to perms with lots of teasing and hairspray?

Women need to be better coiffed. The present blowsy ragged look has gone too far and for far too long.

Teenage girls in the '50s looked middle-aged.

It implies they have time during the day to maintain the look. I had a gaggle of great aunts who wouldn’t appear outside the house during the day - scurrying about in house coats until whenever their husbands came home.

In New Orleans, they Yat ladies would say they are going to go get their “hairs did.“

I would argue that the disappearance of dresses and skirts is a bigger cultural style shift, than the disappearance of helmet hair!

Seriously, go outside and look at crowds. A century ago it was shocking to see a woman in pants (if not illegal), fifty years ago pants were strictly casual, and now skirts are a rarity even among people with desk jobs. It's all pants, leggings, and shorts.

^ Good!

Let the trans"women" take up the mantle of maintaining cultural femininity.

Scandinavian-American ladies in the Upper Midwest say that too, R53.

I'd like to see a return to the classic American "Gibson Girl" style.

IMHO, women were never more radiantly beautiful than in that era.

So unapologetically feminine!

Who would want to smell week old Aqua Net on one of those helmet doos? YUCK My great aunt had a special pillow to prevent her hair from getting messed up at night. I guess blow jobs and sex were totally out of the question. My poor uncle.

I worked in a restaurant as a teen and the owner (a woman) refused to allow women in pants suits into the restaurant. Early pantsuits had wide legs, so they didn’t look much different from long dresses - especially when worn with heels, jewelry and upswept hair, but my boss would tell any woman in a pantsuit that she needed to go home and change into a dress, then she could come in.

Forgot to mention it was the very early 70s.

Let's don't even talk about the styles (of lack of) of most lesbians' hair. I remember shortly after Ellen Page came out, she felt the need to whack off a perfectly nice and feminine hairstyle for a butchy little boy look. Fortunately, common sense has prevailed and she's back to looking like an attractive woman.

Speaking of...how fucking long is E. DeGeneres going to continue on with that ridiculous look she's been lugging around forever?

R64, she has only that and the fullette. Shut your goddamned mouth.

Older Texas ladies have distinctive big hair....maybe humidity plays a role....exacerbating the need for hair spray

I long for a return to days when women had their hairs did

[quote]Do you think set hair, updated, can make a comeback?

No.

Highly unlikely . . . I was very blessed to have had as one of my primary instructors in Cosmetology a woman who had worked with the young Judy Garland . . . from her perspective, I really explored many areas in hairdressing, but one thing is always paramount, for any style--the cut--we trained primarily in the Vidal Sassoon® method--the shows were fabulous!

What I find today is that the long, parted in the middle, highly-processed style is simply boring. Everyone has the same look, and it doesn't work for all facial/head structures. Especially irritating is the push towards "blonde" as seen on Faux News--please!

With all that said, anyone who's been in the industry knows that (depending on the clientele & shop) the LOL's who get the sets each week can be the foundation for a great business. That's how Vidal started, so don't toss your rollers yet!

R59, women of that era weren't so much radiantly beautiful, as drawn in a flattering style back then.

Those huge hairdos may have looked sleek and glossy when drawn by a kind hand, but in real life they were made up of big lumps of fake hair and teasing, and there was no hairspray to help them stay smooth an in place. I real life, they probably looked frizzy and ratty.

R65, what is a fullette?

R55 I've never understood why some women absolutely hates skirts and dresses. They look like they would be so much more comfortable than pants. I love lounging around my house in an oversize t-shirt and nothing else.

“Women are allowed to do better things with their time now.”

Like lounging in sweats and binging on GoT!

I see women of all ages wearing plenty of shorter hairstyles that don't involve curling or "setting."

I totally disagree with the OP, I've always hated the "helmet hair" styles of the middle 20th century. Every single style that involved cutting the hair short, twisting it into an unnatural shape, and gluing it together with Brillantine, gel, or hair spray is unattractive. Every such style looks dated within a couple of years, and pathetic and matronly after a decade, I prefer naturalistic styles done with longer hair. Sure, extensions and overprocessing looks ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as a short style from a previous decade.

There's a timelessness to long hair, even if it's up. For instance, one of the reasons the style of the "STar Wars" films have aged well, is that the female lead didn't have a seventies-specific hairdo. They gave her long hair and pinned it up, and while yes the double bun was ridiculous, the rest of Leia's styles are timeless.

OMG, r67. Ha, ha. What a crone!

That's hilarious!

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

I never visit a salon. Mine grows like this, possums!

[quote]I've never understood why some women absolutely hates skirts and dresses. They look like they would be so much more comfortable than pants. I love lounging around my house in an oversize t-shirt and nothing else.

Really? REALLY?

R62 My grandmother tells a similar story about being denied entry to a nice restaurant in the early 1970s when she had a pantsuit on.

R79 a caftan is long, my oversize t-shit does go past mid-thigh.

^^doesn't not does.

You prissy old queens need to get a life

Girls were not allowed to wear pants or jeans to school until the mid to late 70s and in some schools not until around 1980. Girls born before1960, from K-12, could never wear pants to school or to church. Ever. They graduated high school without ever having worn pants to school even one day. Skirts no more than an inch above the knee with a collared blouse or a dress that didn't expose shoulders and cleavage were the norm back then.

As far as their hair, many roller set it back then to smooth out the kinky waves or excessive curls. Not everyone had straight hair that they were trying to curl.

Can someone please tell me who the young woman in the pic at R49 is and what TV show or film it is from?

r84 Your timeline is off by 5-10 years. I graduated in 1970; girls (and female teachers) were allowed to wear pants the last year or two I was there. And they definitely wore short skirts in the late '60s.

Scotch Hair Set Tape attempted to bring hair-setting for young women into the 1970s, without much success.

R86, I think the onset of pants varied by region.

I grew up in a California college town, I think the girls at my school were first allowed to wear pants in the early 70s.

Honor Blackman should be a hair inspiration for women of a certain age.

Even with something of a more "helmet" style, she avoided the immovable look.

Bring back individuality, a sense of personal style vs fashion slaves. Looking good requires three elements (in descending importance): heredity, effort, expense. What's lacking lately is EFFORT. People have gotten so lazy about presenting themselves.

A slight 60s throwback.

Tasteful friends, Since I've been taking Biotin, switched to pricier Aveda shampoo and conditioner, and have a very good Aveda stylist, my hair is for the 1st time in my life well past my shoulders, very thick, and naturally curly if I just finger comb it. Yes I can comb it straight as an alternative. Are you saying that I must return to short hair?

"I'm guessing everyone alive has known or still knows a woman "of a certain age" who still gets her hair set in a sculpted pouf or tight curls, maybe even something that resembles a throwback to Marcel waves."

I'm fifty and not only do I not know any woman like this, I haven't seen a woman like this in at least thirty years.

A combination of styled and slightly lose is a good combination

....

[quote]Until the 1960's, fashions in clothing, make-up, hair, and in just about everything else, reflected a socially encouraged desire to elevate yourself, to become more sophisticated. From 1960's on, it was all about looking younger, younger, younger. Elevating one's self, becoming more sophisticated, was anathema.

Yes, hardly anyone tries to be mature or sophisticated anymore. Or tries to elevate themselves. To be in a city now means surrounded by large crowds of badly dressed people. Long hair looks bad and long beards do as well. It is something psychological going on there.

No,R45. No,no,no.

Glenn Close is not 60. As of this writing, she is one month shy of 72.

ITA with R94. Maybe it depends on where you live and work. I'm in the northeast in a fairly progressive, affluent area. No one has cotton candy "roller set" hair, even old ladies. And for OP to say he sees women of 70 with it? WTF? Seventy y/o women went to Woodstock. They never had a roller set hair and never will. If this is happening at all (my guess is flyoverville) it's women 80 y/o and older.

She's lovely R89, but hardly representative of the average older woman. For one thing, she's blessed not only with model looks and bone structure......but she has thick hair. Most old ladies have thinning hair---probably why they tease and contort their meager remaining strands into elaborate dos.

The women still doing their hair are in their late 80s, 90s

These styles are long overdue for a comeback.

Ugh this thread reeks of typical cis White Gay misogyny. Stop dictating how we women should look and behave. We women of a certain age look absolutely great with long flowing locks as Nature intended

R102 They're already here. That's exactly the type of hairstyle these 80 year-olds get when they walk out of the beauty parlor.

Black women still do the weekly (or even longer) wash and set

These hairdos mystify me. It looks like it would take a long time everyday to put any of these together.

"Why don't today's women wear their hair more like the 90-year-olds I know?" has got to be the height of Datalounge eldergay.

Gloria Vanderbilt is 94 and looks great with a bob haircut:

Betty White at 97 is still rocking the high and tight "set" 'do:

"What is fashion?" said the destroyer of souls.

I have naturally completely straight hair without any movement - after suffering through the 80s as a teenager, trying to get any kind of trendy hairstyle and failing (even perms didn’t really work) I have spent the last 30 years amused and mystified at every woman with better, fuller, bouncier hair trying to get the straight ratty look that is my genetic destiny. Why people like it mystifies me.

Hi think the most distinctive generational shift is men and women not wearing grown-up clothes anymore.

Yeah, or clothes that look good.

Fabulous and very natural youthful hair!

Women now are into the "frosted" look. It didn't look good during the 70s and doesn't look good now.

R111, it mystifies me as well (as a curl head). I’m always perplexed when women ask what I do to my hair because it looks so healthy... stop with the over-processing!

Since I was there when it happened, I'll tell you some reasons we moved away from set hair.

The main reason is from around 1970, we started being able to buy affordable, decent and safe blow dryers and curling irons.

Before that, you did pin curls, rollers, or rag curls, which took time and skill, and then you had to sit with your big electric dryer cap on for a long time. If you didn't have a dryer, you had to try to sleep with uncomfortable rollers and bobby pins sticking in your scalp.

My mother was obsessed with hair, and didn't mind me learning how to do a set with Dippity-Do and pin curls, different kinds of rollers, and even rags.

Because it took so much time and effort, women kept their hair set more tightly so it would last. You wouldn't brush through it for a natural look, because you'd lose so much curl.

Now you can do everything fast and painlessly with curling irons and a good blow dryer.

You're onto something there, R112.

If you look back at photos of young men and women in the 50's and earlier, the goal was to LOOK OLDER. People couldn't wait to grow up. Guys wore hats and suits. Women wore dresses with girdles and shorter, styled hair as a mark of maturity---"I'm not a kid anymore" status. They couldn't wait to leave home and be on their own--to get away from strict parents.

That has all turned 180º. Now people want to stay young forever. You have 30 y/o "kids" still living with their parents and everyone is totally fine with it. No one wants to grow up now. So we have 50 y/o Housewives of NJ trilled that they can share their daughter's clothes. It's gross.

OP, the change in style from set hair to more natural is indeed a generational shift. I've had a front row seat to the evolution of hair styles because my older sister (in her early 70s and still working) is a hairstylist with a massive clientele, including their children and grandchildren, and our family and friends. Mostly she styles women but also does men. She keeps up with the trends, is very smart and a hoot, it's why she's still so popular.

Women still see their stylists quite often, it's just the styles that have changed. Also the cost. It's much more expensive to get your hair done now than it was 30 years ago. For many women, it's now not affordable and their hair reflects that.

When my sis first started women were wearing bubbles, double bubbles, French twists, and had frosted hair and helmet heads. Then younger women started wearing their hair long, straight, and natural but their mothers still styled and sprayed old-style coifs. Color and cut has always been important. Styles change often. Women and men have been keeping stylists busy all along.

Still, hair is a pain. Not too many people know how to fix their own for to maximize their looks. Most women I know now have cut and maybe color done about every six weeks, but it's a more natural look, not highly styled.

The shift towards bare legs (no panty hose / stockings) is another big shift. I was surprised, reading the panty hose thread, how many women still like wearing panty hose.

[quote]Do you think set hair, updated, can make a comeback? No.

—Vidal Sassoon

Do you think Vidal Sassoon can make a comeback?

No.

[quote]many women still like wearing panty hose

Yes, "women" like these

The Real Housewives hair is getting really tired. Looking at Gisele at the Super Bowl, I realized she's had the exact same hairstyle for 20 years! The long waves, middle part has been around for two decades and it's a high maintenance look. Not effortless. My nieces do it everyday. It takes them over an hour. Walking around I notice how few women have short hair, the easy wash and wear Mom bob cuts are no more.

R123 because women don’t look good with short hair. They are not supposed to have it. Men like long hair on women.

URVery time I see a young person with cute short hair I notice because it’s so rare. It looks more stylish than the long boring hair everyone had.

R125 dyke

Short hair does nothing for your typical round, doughy face and slack jaw line.

Everyone had short hair on the 90’s

Long, straight hair does nothing for round doughy faces, etc., either, except cover them up.

I'm not sure why people imagine there are only two extremes in women's hair. Mid-length styles (shoulder-length and shorter) with volume, shape, and that frame the face the flatteringly should be the go-to's for most women who don't have faces like teenage models, particularly middle-aged and older women (who unfortunately go for one extreme or another).

Look at Sally Field. She usually looks great, and far younger than her age. It's not "little girl" hair. It has shape, volume, great color, and it frames her round, soft face very attractively. And this isn't even a doctored, fashion-mag style photo.

Short and medium-length hair can be more high maintenance than long hair. A lot of these "wash and wear" styles actually require a lot of work.

Most of the woman posted here are wearing wigs.

R130 Jose Eber?

What's boring R20 is so many women with the same cookie cutter appearance, including hair. I am so sick of the bleached blonde hair with black roots or the heavily highlighted hair. Most women do NOT look good as blondes. i used to love all the different ranges of natural hair color and even the range of different styles in the 70s and 80s. That is true of facial appearance as well. People used to be more unique looking and were satisfied with it. Now people look so plastic. Even actors used to look so unique and it was part of their charm.

Way back my grandmother and aunt would go to the salon for perms and come out with poodle do's. They swore by them since they didn't have to bother with their hair other than shampooing until the next time.

Perfect photo for this thread, R43. Illustrates both types.

To those acting like I started this thread because I want us to return to a time when women were seen (encased in hair lacquer) but not heard, not true! Listen to these fine ladies!

Cool, Op!

R86, I graduated in 1969 and girls were NOT allowed to wear pants to school. Further, skirts had to be no more than an inch above the knee. The previous poster is correct.

I blame that hussy Jennifer Aniston.

What r99 said. I also live in an affluent area in the Northeast and nobody around here has "roller set" hair. The older women have the kind of hair that Helen Mirren and Glenn Close have. Maybe it's more of a regional thing.

I think it's also a class thing. Working class old ladies have it more.

Not true, R124.

R130, a lot of that can be done with a good cut. If you have a hair stylist who knows what he/she is doing, you can comb and ruffle it after washing or blow it dry and it will naturally fall into the style.

I get a weekly wash, set with big rollers, under the hair dryer for an hour and then blow out. That's what I see for Puerto Rican and Dominican women in my neighborhood. My mom was adventurous in her 70s through 90s and had her hair length at various lengths and cuts during the last stage of her life.

My stylist seems to be bored with the typical long hair blow out. She's always asking if I considered going curly or coloring my hair. As I have never colored or permed my hair I take a pass. Ive considered a short cut but as my hair grows slowly, I'm too chicken to follow through.

Washing your hair only once a week is disgusting.

R141 I'm not so sure. Queen Elizabeth and Betty White have wealth yet prefer to have "set" hair so maybe it's age (~80+)?

It’s not age at all. I’m a 15-year-old gay boy (hung top in case you were wondering) and I have my hair set every week.

I thought they used curling irons before they used curlers and after the curling irons they used bobbies pins.

R117 And hot curlers.

Don't forget about hot curlers, usually 12 per set of varying sizes to control the curl tightness. Women would plug the set in and wait about 5 minutes for it to heat up and then wrap strands of hair around each hot curler and leave it in for 10 minutes (while they applied their makeup) until the curlers cooled down. They were used to curl straight hair and also to smooth out and loosen tight curls or kinky, frizzy hair so that they had a looser curl. IIRC hot curlers become popular sometime in the 80s.

Yes, my mom loved her hot curlers in the 80s. When fashions changed in the early 90s, she stopped using them.

^ Yes, that's when my sister stopped using them.

I think it was in the early 90s after almost 10 yrs of hot curlers. I was glad when I didn't have to look at that damn thing taking up room on the counter in the bathroom we shared. She then took to a blow dryer and wore her hair straight. But she kept the blow dryer in her dresser drawer. She has not changed her style and hair care pattern much since then. Washed every few days, still fairly straight, no fake hair extensions, and barely shoulder length, more appropriate for her age (55) than how most women her age and those slightly younger wear their hair.

There's a scene in the movie "Isadora", of Isadora Duncan using a curling iron as they were used in the 1920s. She'd put it over an open gas flame for a few seconds, and then pick it up and curl a bit of hair, and then put it back on the open flame, and so on. It must have been like the ironing-flatirons of the day, they didn't have internal heating mechanisms, you had to use actual open fires to heat the iron.

Before curling irons that you heated with an open flame, ladies of earlier centuries used rags or papers to curl their hair. I don't know exactly how they did that, I've just heard it mentioned in books, but here's a painting of a little girl with her hair "in papers".

It does appear that it is only African-American women keeping up the wash and set tradition, among the younger generations. My almost 90 year old white grandmother still goes for hers every two weeks, even when she was in the hospital suffering from having had a major heat attack, her biggest concern was that she was missing her appointment, we had to get her an appointment for the day after she left the hospital.

Oh, shut up, Dribbles. The things a woman has to go through to get some HEIGHT.

My mother and her friends are all middle class, Midwestern women circling 80. Only one of them is still rocking a set hairdo. Most of them gave them up in the late sixties.

The higher the hair, the closer to God.

A side-parted bob about 2-4 inches longer than chin length and with long, sideswept bangs is universally flattering and youthful.

Demi looked pretty in INDECENT PROPOSAL.

But I remember those blunt cut, sharp and/or blocky bob haircuts from the 80s and early 90s. They're unforgiving on most women.

The bob has come back again, but the shape and texture is different.

[quote]The older women have the kind of hair that Helen Mirren and Glenn Close have. Maybe it's more of a regional thing.

Yep, r140. In Australia. Most women over 65 have either something they can shove into a pony tail or, indeed, the Mirren/Close style of having something between a textured pixie cut and a shaggy bob.

The only women I know who wore curlers and got permanent waves in their older years were my grandmother's vintage, and she would have been 99 this year.

The "Girls Getting To Wear Pants/Jeans To School" wasn't set in stone...it's not like it was a national law that all changed at the exact same time.

My 1969 kindergarten photo has little girls in pants in it. And, I'm from a small town in the Midwest.

r158 Funny how Demi Moore now wears the patented centre parted, long wavy style now. She was famous in her prime for how beautifully she wore the boy-cut in GHOST and the bob in INDECENT PROPOSAL.

I like the wash and wear look on women. I, too, am tired of the "real housewives" type hairstyles with all the color dye and straightening chemicals. I used to love the way women wore their hair in the 70s. Shampoo was very popular and women washed their hair and wore it natural. Peggy Lipton was a perfect example.

I think going into the 2020s the styles will gradually become more natural and the "Real Housewives" look, and other celebrities too with the fake extensions and excessively highlighted or bleached blonde look, will start to fade. Slow but sure. My opinion.

I actually did like wearing pantyhose. I was on my feet all day and 3ben though I wore pants, I wore support pantyhose underneath because I felt it really helped my back & legs. AlSo, when I was younger, support pantyhose could slim your legs a bit, especially if you had a little cellulite, which was jiggly.

Another thing - up until menopause I never weighed more than 110. I was mostly under 100 lbs (I’m short) always cold , so I even wore pantyhose under jeans in winter, for warmth. Back then we always wore socks with jeans, so you couldn’t tell we were wearing hose. Sometimes the support hose was a little too constricting on the stomach, so I’d take a pair of scissors and spilt the front a bit. I think it helped keep me slim too because I couldn’t eat too much food when I wore them out to dinner.

I think fabric has had a huge impact on society. I couldn’t overeat back in the day because my pants would become too tight at the waist. When clothes got to tight, I’d be very careful about what I ate. Tight pants = salad time.

Then came “stretch” fabrics. Stretchy jeans (“they stretch at the waist!”), more spandex, finally sweat pants & yoga pants became a big part of society. I first noticed this when GAP went online. I had two pair of size 2 jeans I really liked and wanted to replace, but couldn’t find them in the stores. I found them on line, ordered them and they were so tight I couldn’t get them up. “This is mismarked!” Took them back to a GAP store. Ordered them again in size 2. Once again, they were too small. “Oh, they stretched with as you gained weight ,” said the way-too-young girl behind the counter.

I had gained some weight, but thought it didn’t make much difference because my jeans still fit me fine. That’s when I found out that stretch fabric wasn’t just used in old lady pull-on pants. It was mainstream now, and I could gain weight in my adbomen & legs and my clothes would still fit.

Then came America’s obesity epidemic. Well, no shit Sherlock. If you make clothes that stretch as people gain weight, they’re gonna gain weight.

For 152: How to do paper curls.

Did anyone have a mom, grandma, aunt, etc. who was a hairhopper in the '60s? My mom used to rock the barrel curls ("love locks") on the girl in the middle below.

My mother thought she looked like Carol Lawrence (she didn’t) and thought Carol looked elegant in this hairstyle. Problem was, my mother wore it for years beyond the style. And it began to look like a beehive do.

R168 Phyllis Lindstrom also wore that same style. It was very elegant.

My aunt ran the town "beauty parlor", and my grandmother had a choice weekly appointment - Friday afternoons around 3 PM. She'd go in and get her hair washed, trimmed as needed, rinsed with a Fanci-Full White Minx rinse, then have it rolled, and would sit under the dryer for it to dry, flipping through Southern Living or Good Housekeeping. Afterwards, my aunt would tease the hair to create some height and then style it in a generally poufy, curly style similar to Sophia on Golden Girls but a bit bigger and more poufy, then would spray the whole thing extremely thoroughly with hairspray. Going on Friday afternoon meant that the hairdo would still be fresh for Sunday morning church service.

Sometimes, during the summer, she'd wash her hair mid-week just to feel fresher, but usually she'd wait the entire week, until the next Friday, to do it all over again.

oops. forgot the pic

I think these big poofy set hairstyles are/were more of a "Southern" thing.

R170, we call that cotton candy hair.

Does anyone remember the old ladies with cotton candy BLUE hair? I had two great aunts who wore their hair that way. The blue was subtle--kind of gray/blue. I tried to find a photo but no luck. If you browse for "blue hair" the only thing that comes up are fat fugly SJWs with tattoos and nose rings.

R170 Back then, old ladies were proud of their white, poofy cotton candy hair. They wanted to look pretty for the preacher on Sunday and this was it. I don't see someone as vain as Kim Kardashian or Giselle ever rocking that look.

She was a comic figure on the show but her hairdo is the set pin curl look from the 30s and 40s that can look glamorous and professional depending on the person and the rest of the wardrobe

R173 try googling ‚‘blue rinse‘

This thread has me confused. I think it's mainly lower-class Southerners?

The CT Wasp should recognize the Jane Hathaway hairdo at R175, unless you are 20 years old.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

The Jane Hathaway hairdo isn't the big poofy hairdo others are talking about.

The Honor Blackman bob is what older women in the Northeast have been wearing for decades.

A flattering flick.

The blue rinse is usually achieved either with the appropriate shade of Roux Fanci-Full (an old-school semipermanent color; see R170) or Mrs. Stewart's Liquid Bluing for laundry. The idea is to get the yellow out of white hair.

Does R23/R24 seriously think women like Kellyanne Conway would look better with some ridiculous Lady Bird Johnson bouffant?

r183 Mix blue with yellow and you get green. Purple or violet makes more sense for canceling out yellow, or rendering it a neutral gray.

[quote]The Jane Hathaway hairdo isn't the big poofy hairdo others are talking about.

Yeah, it's isn't. And OP wasn't talking about that, and some others were not talking about that. R177 said: "This thread has me confused. I think it's mainly lower-class Southerners?". This thread is not all about big poofy hairdos and the thread did not start out that way. There are about 10 different hairdos being discussed and the big unflattering poofy ones make about 30% of the discussion.

The Jane Hathaway and Honor Blackman hairdos are good. And the Demi Moore haircut at R158. Nancy Pelsoi's haircut is good. That is why she is a leader.

My aunt and my mother always looked forward to getting their hair permed and cut. It was a social thing as well as a “pampered” thing to them.

Thanks R176. Found a few. Still not easy to find photos of those classic older women with their teased up cotton candy puff of blue hair that I remember.

Speaking of blue rinses, I miss Quentin Crisp.

Did you miss the late 60s? That's when Baby Boomers stopped the bouffants, stopped the perms, and grew our hair straight, long, and parted in the middle (aka, "Ted Bundy Bait").

Wow, R189, that's more elaborate than the Trump hair do?

I love French New Wave movies and adore the varying hairstyles in them. Long, short, sculpted, or wavy bedhead. Something for everyone!

Older celebrity women wear the goofy long extensions but in the real world I notice most women between 50 - 70 wear a version of the Helen mirren do. (Inverted Bob) Elderly women may go for the older fashioned set look. The good news is I rarely see poodle perms anymore!

I thought when Bernice “Bobbed” her hair in the 20s, it was an act of empowerment and rebellion. Could someone please elaborate?

Curlers in your hair. Shame on you.

Curlers on your head!

Curlers in your bed!

I do NOT miss the sight of women out and about with their hair in curlers, which was painfully common when I was a kid. Sometimes those slags would put a scarf over the curlers, but usually not, they just wen around looking like half-dressed slovens.

It all stopped when loose blow-dried styles came in, and then electric hot rollers, some time in the seventies. I really loathed curlers, and the styles they produced.

I see bobby pins by our pool sometimes - building does NOT have blue-haired ladies. I asked my neighbor why and she said they're still used by young women to hold parts of the hair in place.

[quote]I see bobby pins by our pool sometimes - building does NOT have blue-haired ladies.

Except for you, of course.

I remember one of my jr high school teachers (Mr. Brierley) telling our class any man who owned a blow dryer was a homosexual.

Cher is definitely someone who needs a more age-appropriate hairstyle.

^ I agree. It looks hideous.

That hair makes her look crazy. It's hard to like and respect someone who looks cray-cray. Or to take them seriously.

Girls were not allowed to wear pants or jeans to school until the mid to late 70s and in some schools not until around 1980

What? My dad was a high school teacher and all the girls in the 1970s yearbooks had jeans and bellbottoms. Here's a 1972 picture with plenty of girls in jeans.

Your timeline is way, way off here.

Ah hell, I forgot to use quotes for the first sentence in my post at R202. Hopefully it makes sense and I don't sound unhinged (or more unhinged than usual).

No, R202. One school does not speak for them all.

The girls in my high school, in the early 70's, in the midwest where it gets very, very cold, had to defy the school dress code, get pulled out of class, and sent home to finally be allowed to wear pants to school. Their parents must have raised hell. It took several weeks, but the school dress code was changed. And no Hippies invaded. None.

They must show their legs! They are Young Ladies!

R35, I think Glenn looks fab with the short hair, chic as hell compared to the overstyled waxen geriatric Barbie look of many of her peers.

You made me laugh R199.

Ariana Grande revealed her almost shoulder length naturally curly hair. She still looks 12 though. So much more interesting than the mega extensions and ginormous ponytail.

[quote]One school does not speak for them all.

It's not one school. Search through images of high school in 1972 or 1974 or whatever and you'll see literally hundreds of photos like that.

Meanwhile, YOU'RE the one going on and on about how one school -- yours -- is representative of an entire country. Come on, buddy, even you know better than that.

I once upon a time taught "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," r194!

When I was performing in Summer Stock and dinner theaters, the Wednesday matinee crowd was often referred to as the blue haired audience.

The blue rinse brigade!

What you say may be true. Time will undoubtedly tell. In the meantime, you left out one detail. The cut and wash are paid for. The blue rinse is paid for. The perm is paid for. And the hairdressers are paid for.

R208 There are six different posters posting about pants, not two posters debating back and forth, or one going on and on about it.

Anyway, back to the topic of hair styles.

[quote]The idea is to get the yellow out of white hair.

Couldn't they just use Pepsodent?

IMHO long hair is more intrinsically beautiful than short hair, or at least long hair that's healthy and shiny.

I'm unimpressed by the short cuts I see these days, to my eye most of them look boring and matronly. I also think it's true that few women look better in short hair than in long, and those that look the absolute best have delicate features and long necks, and could also carry off longer looks.

Short hair was seen as liberating in the 1920s, because a short cut was so much less trouble than the updos of the preceding decades. To get a style like this you either had to be born with unusually thick hair and enough money to pay a lady's maid to pin it up, or you had to buy pads to give it bulk and spend hours wrestling the whole thing into shape. The short cuts of the 1920s were much less trouble, if you couldn't afford a marcel wave then you could give them shape with bobby pins.

Or spit curls. Nothing cheaper than a spit curl.

Short hair (for women) was liberating in the 1920s AND the 1980s.

And the hippie long hair of the late sixties and early seventies was liberating, after the gigantic bouffants of the sixties.

Yes, but then the long hair became a prison. Women were liberated by short New Wave haircuts and Lady Di.

I was researching the Gibson hair style and this image of Mel Gibson popped up.

I think the Gibson hair style was, historically, one of the worst women's hair style. Ugh!

[quote]r6 Women just don't have the time today to "set" their hair.

Women still spend a great deal of time and expense on their hair, it's just with different procedures. For instance, many women with curly or wavy hair will have it blown straight ... preferably by a professional. If you avoid washing it, and humidity in general, it might last 4 days.

I'd think a more dramatic change from that era to modern times would be the number of items that go into an outfit. Then you had a dress, gloves, hat, slip, foundation garment, stockings, garter belt, shoes, purse, jewelry ... and who knows what all else (corsage?)

Today a woman might wear half that number.

[quote]r35 tell Glenn to take her lead from the ever glamorous Carmen dell'Orefice.

She kind of did, in the Season 5 DAMAGES finale.

[quote]r72 I've never understood why some women absolutely hates skirts and dresses. They look like they would be so much more comfortable than pants. I love lounging around my house in an oversize t-shirt and nothing else.

For one thing, they facilitate rape.

Secondly, one has to manage a skirt: keeping it in place when sitting, keeping it from blowing upwards if it's a full skirt. A skirt isn't as carefree to wear as pants ...

As a kid in the 70's even into the early 80's I remember my mom going to bed with her hair wrapped in toilet paper and held with clips. She used to get her hair done every Friday and didn't wash it in between so I guess that was to keep the shape of her hair.

When one of the Kardashians finally embraces the frau look, à la Kris Jenner, watch short hair make the most spectacular comeback.

R163 [quote]I think going into the 2020s the styles will gradually become more natural and the "Real Housewives" look, and other celebrities too with the fake extensions and excessively highlighted or bleached blonde look, will start to fade. Slow but sure. My opinion.

These anomalies in style definitely happen in waves, and female change always seems to be preceded by an era when physically "ugly" guys are being seen as being desirable in poplar culture. We seem to be in something like one of those "gritty" eras now (for males at least) a bit like the one we had from 1970 to1982, after decades of the male sex symbol ideal almost without exception being pretty boys. It all depends if the girls of Generation Alpha (b 2010) like pretty boys or not, as they will be the ones hitting puberty soon.

My sister hates that every time she sees our dad, he tells her that her hair is “unkempt”. It’s not, it’s in a layered chin length bob but he’s of the helmet hair generation or at least short and sensible aka butch.

True, that generation considered hair "unkempt" if it's not lacquered and sprayed into a helmet.

The late '80s/very early '90s were the last hurrah for elaborate lacquered hairdos, usually plastered into place with something like Paul Mitchell Freeze and Shine.

[quote]r227 My sister hates that every time she sees our dad, he tells her that her hair is “unkempt”. It’s not, it’s in a layered chin length bob but he’s of the helmet hair generation or at least short and sensible aka butch.

Tell him that when he gets a cosmetology license, he can style it.

Someone talked me into a shag haircut in the 70s. Oh god, what a mistake. No matter what I did, in 2. Inutes it settled flat and I looked like a crazy, nearsighted person who took scissors to my head without my glasses on.

R216, they didn't have to buy "pads," they used the hair that they brushed out of their heads and shmused it into a "rat," using a special glass container. My grandmother, who came of age in the Gibson era, still had her glass hair collector to the end. Some girls with thin hair had to buy a wire frame.

I think the Gibson girl hairstyle is lovely.

R232, I have no idea why I find the idea of saving your own discarded tangled hair disgusting, but I do.

"Yes, but then the long hair became a prison. Women were liberated by short New Wave haircuts and Lady Di. "

And then, women were liberated from the gel-heavy dos of the 80s by the sloppy pony tails of the 90s and 00s!

You didn't have to use gel. That was only some New Wave dos, at the beginning.

But now women are in a long hair prison, again. A grotesque one. Kardashian, and too long on everyone.

R235... Don't be that old queen who goes around lamenting that modern women don't look more like June Allyson.

No, June Allyson did not look modern, but neither do the current Kardashian clone slobs.

What I don’t get is women like Goop who have fine hair and are flat ironing it. Don’t they look better with volume?

The Kardashian look is finally getting horribly dated. I don't know about other places, but thankfully I only ever see the occasional clone now. Usually it's a sad looking older woman in her 30s still going to great pains to be like them.

Long hair is lovely, even casual, unstyled long hair... as long as the lady has thick, glossy, good-looking hair. It's one of those looks that will never completely go out of style, but which should never be faked.

Gals, if your hair isn't thick or healthy enough to look good long, don't get extensions and load it up with products, just find a more flattering style!

The nuns sent me home in the 5th g rade for wearing a midi-skirt skirt and coat. Yes, a midi, not mini.

R51, is that Klamath Union (Oregon) High School class of 1963 (I think)? I swear an old friend’s mom is in this pic.

This modern hairdo travels well. It looks fabulous in bed, at afternoon tea, on the open seas, hiking Mt. Everest, and for an elegant evening out. If your hair gets in your eyes you just clip it back with17 clips. What could be more fashionable?

This one is nicely styled but something went wrong in the back. Maybe she was attacked by a dog groomer?

Thirty years from now people will look at this and think "WTF?"

[quote]Thirty years from now people will look at this and think "WTF?"

I'm thinking that already.

Here's a fashion statement - Kate Plus 8 Lava HaIr (short at the back and long at the front).

Before the internet and the malling of America, regional differences were much more pronounced. Some parts of the country may have started allowing young women to wear jeans to school in 1970; in other parts, it may have been sometime later.

Who in their right mind would want to sleep, assuming it's possible, with a head full of rollers? It's no longer necessary as one can blow out one's hair and put curls back in strategically with a flat iron and some sort of protective spray. Not that anyone is doing this during the pandemic. Most women are taking a break from elaborate hair styling and makeup and probably have healthier hair and skin than they have in years.

To the fellow who assumes that wearing a pencil skirt, hose and heels is as comfortable as wearing a long T-shirt, er, no, it isn't. Muumuus and caftans are comfortable but they're not office wear.

I have a very elderly lady friend, she's in her 80's, who still goes every week for her 'do. She's worn her hair in a short "cap" style since photos I've seen of her in her HS years. Never wavered from but as the styles changed she'd change it up a bit. She had the perm in the 80's but the hair never really changed. I guess now I'm pondering what a suitable hairstyle for an older woman would be without looking like an old lady or matron. I think Meryl's hair in that Vogue movie was great but you'd have to have really chiseled, "clean" features.

Her hairdresser once complained to me that her least favorite part of doing the old lady sets was their hair would stink sometimes.

R247 that was called the "hedgehog".

I've had female friends tell me that short hair is actually harder to style then long hair. Long hair can be brushed, then pulled back with a clip whereas when they had shorter styles they had to fix the "bedhead" problem every morning.

That's exactly what I thought too R2.

I think nails are the new wash and set. I see lots of hillbilly girls out and about wearing Sponge Bob fleece pajama pants with their hair in a messy topknot, but their artificial nails are always immaculate and, if not, they're on their way to a touch-up at the nail salon.

The nail thing is grotesque R253. The worst are the ones that are so long you wonder how they can function every day and so much bling glued on that they could land the space shuttle not to mention looking very heavy. Dare I say "ghetto" looking?

I have a friend who still gets her nails manicured with just buffing and clear polish and keeps them short and they look so much better.

and your answer R252 is further down from R2. Gay men have always been involved in womens fashion trends.

The wearing-rollers-in-your-hair overnight started disappearing for the young set in the late 60s with the availability of hot curlers. Thank goodness! I could get up in the morning, curl my hair, and have it styled in about 30 minutes.

When I escaped my mom's dictates and left for college, I grew my hair long and only used hot curlers for special occasions. A long shag was my favorite style. Later my hair was pulled back or rolled up in a quick bun.

Hair dryers and curling irons were wonderful for rapid styling. And long hair is way easier to maintain for many working women. Mine is close to waist length, white now, and I still roll it up quickly in a low or high bun for daily wear.

My 70 year old sister sees a stylist every few weeks for a cut, still uses a blow dryer every morning and styling gel. I spend my money on hair sticks, fancy clips and trim my own about three times a year.

R2

Because for ages many gay men who made up the ranks of hairdressers made very comfortable living from "set" hair.

Late as the 1970's or even 1980's many salon owners or others had a dependable source of income from weekly wash, set and comb out clients.

Men like "Mr. Kenneth" not only became well off but well known and trend setters (see what I did there?).

Plenty of gay men along with their life partners (who also worked in the business) made very comfortable lives for themselves. More importantly were allowed to be themselves at a time when decent paying much less lucrative careers were few for openly gay men.

To OP and rest.

Women's hair styles went through a few generational "shifts" as it were, and the end of wash/set actually began much earlier than many believe.

By 1920's women all over North America and Europe at least were getting their hair "bobbed" by cutting off all that long hair. Prior to this well past Victorian or Edwardian period the fashion for women was tons of long hair piled on top of their heads. Flappers and other women reveled in the freedom of short hair which was easier to care for, especially after the blow dryer was invented in 1920.

Problem with all wet sets is time it takes for hair to dry. It took ages before small and portable hair dryers were available for home use, and even then not every girl/woman could afford one. Even with a dryer you still had to spend an hour or so setting your hair, then another hour or whatever under a dryer..... Many women opted instead to simply set their hair and either go to sleep or otherwise about their business until things dried.

Hot rollers, electric curling irons and other tools in theory should have put a dent in all that nonsense, but certain hairstyles require a wet set otherwise they simply won't hold .

r133, I work in film, and happen to do a lot of period stuff (period is considered '90s and earlier). On some earlier eras (starting with the 80's), I have to ask the Background Casting director to cast women (and some men) who do not look like they have plastic surgery, fillers, lash extensions, fake tanning, really obvious veneers. I would say that 75% of actors all have tattoos and multiple ear piercings, so we have to cover that up too.

On period films where hair is set ("Hitchcock"), the Department Head Hair asked the BG to curl and set their own hair at home, come in rollers, and the Hair people will then proceed to style it. I remember there was one of BG girls that had that Hitchcock blonde color in a very short style, and they used her in almost all the scenes where there was BG. They were smart enough to put up a YouTube tutorial for it.

I visited my mother who lives in the wonderful (sarcasm) hub of Trinity, TX and actually see women still sporting what I call 80's cowgirl hair. Long with short wings in the front carefully blown or curled back and sprayed to hell and back. The more modern gals have meth head hair which might mean a partially shaved head with a pony tail or dyed bright fluorescent pink and all have lots of tattoos.

R259 What is a BG?

R259 Background. I managed to find the Hitchcock blonde BG girl on the right side of the photo:

My grandmother used to get her hair “set” at a salon. I think it meant they curled it and put a lot of hairspray on it. But it was a hike event for her - the washing and drying and socializing with other elderly ladies there.

That should be “whole” event. She didn’t hike there!

My grandmother's hair was sprayed so hard, we referred to it as 'crispy'

[quote]I do NOT miss the sight of women out and about with their hair in curlers, which was painfully common when I was a kid.

That was considered very low-class.

Looking towards the future...

[quote]I visited my mother who lives in the wonderful (sarcasm) hub of Trinity, TX and actually see women still sporting what I call 80's cowgirl hair.

How about the 80s perms? You still see some middle-aged women in small towns who still have the tight spiral perms from the 80s. Probably the ugliest hairstyle ever.

R268 I never realized that wasn’t natural!

Amsterdam 1968 - before the drag queens commandeered the look.

Those were WHORES r270!

Reply #2

[quote] Has there ever been a more distinctive, generational style shift in our lifetimes than "set" hair?

Not in our neighborhood.

I think the big helmet hair was definitely more of a Southern thing. In the Northeast you never saw it, even back in the 80s.

I'm sure there are some crispy-fried perms in Trinity.

As much as women idolize Marilyn Monroe, they don't really copy her hairstyle, which looks roller-set. It still looks old-fashioned and aging. The poster way upthread was correct. As long as women are trying to look young at all costs, we will not go back to roller sets.

Dita Von Teese would be an outlier.

R60 / R82, NYC/SF socialite Nan Kempner ("I wouldn't miss the opening of an envelope") was once refused entry at the restaurant La Côte Basque for wearing pants, so she just took them off.

Omg, I love this thread and had forgotten all about it, I am laughing soooo hard at that Clairol curlers “shame on you” late 60’s theme song lololol.

Speaking of TX hair, one thing I’ve noticed the last decade is what I will call “NE-WASP hair”. But the Kennedy’s have it too. I’m talking shoulder length or shorter, shaped however it fits that persons face and hair texture, a few longer layers, NO COLOR. That is a regional thing, I don’t see that many women owning their middle aged+ hair in any other region. Caroline is one of the few Kennedy women who has opted to at least throw in some color.

I hope they weren't dungarees, r277!

Gibson Girl hair? Holy shit go fuck yourselves. Let's just all agree that women can't do anything right ever.

About 80% of the time r280.

Ha r265, I refer that as the "Ann Miller Hair Helmet". Or "Jack Lord Hair Helmet". Sadly the kids today don't get the reference.

A co-worker's wife goes to retirement communities and does 'old lady hair'. It's a lost art.

[quote] I refer that as the "Ann Miller Hair Helmet". Or "Jack Lord Hair Helmet". Sadly the kids today don't get the reference.

"The kids?" How about people in their 40s and 50s?

Newest vogue...

HIYA, GAYS!

Speaking of big hair...

We can see shifting trends in women's hairstyles and "sets" from middle 1960's to early 1970's via DL fav Elizabeth Montgomery and Bewitched.

When Sam first meets Darrin and marries as a young suburban Connecticut wife and mother she sports a wet set bouffant, slight variation of Jackie Kennedy. When Endora pops in catching Sam housecleaning (wearing slacks and large man's shirt), Sam's hair is curlers. Endora asks "what *HAVE* you done to your hair? One "zap" and Endora gets rid of curlers and Sam is coiffed perfectly.

By late sixties to series end Sam's hair becomes longer and less bouffant. It is a more free and easy going hairstyle that still was set, but could be done with hot rollers. Of course as series nears end Sam has totally gotten rid of the respectable Connecticut matron look. It was mini skirts, mod boots and long loose hair.

Many hair salons no longer offer roller sets and comb outs. It's even difficult to find brush rollers.