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| Mia Culpa-Farrow |
If I’d been old enough to understand how curses work, I
would have cursed Mia Farrow and the super-short hairstyle that women the world over would copy, well into the 1970s.
At six years old, I lacked the words (and physical strength) to challenge my mother as she allowed the hairdresser to chop off my long curls. I remember staring into the salon mirror, too proud to cry, but my face like thunder, as the stylist thinned what hair was left, into that voguish waif cut.
At home, I sat at my dressing table, telling Barbie, Sindy and Chrissy (the doll whose hair could grow just by pressing a button in her back) how upset I was, all the while combing, combing, combing what was left of my hair in the belief this would somehow hasten the regrowth.
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| Cindy Brady rockin' the rope ribbons |
By the following year, I had enough hair to wear The Pageboy – another ugly, but super-popular style of the 70s. Better still, I reached that milestone that female victims of Very Short Hair know all too well: my hair was now jusssssst long enough to pull into a ponytail, without ‘bits’ falling short of the elastic. With great joy, I added the touch d’jour: a rope ribbon. I think elsewhere they were known as soft wool ribbons? Although ropelike in shape, they were very soft to the touch.
I didn’t know any girl who’d wear pigtails, plaits or a ponytail, without
dressing it up. Baubles and ribbons were the finishing touch. If you wore your hair down, matching barrettes were the way to go. Teachers made an enormous fuss if your hair fell anywhere near your face. Long fringes, we were told, could lead to blindness. At this point, we began falling into two camps: girls with conformist hair, and those with The Shag. I thought The Shag (and "The Lioness") looked pretty exciting, but flashbacks to my last Major Haircut left me shy of scissors coming anywhere remotely close to my shoulders.
So the majority of us clung to our lengthy locks. Our mothers longed for us to forever wear pigtails that sat high and springy
above our ears, but as you got closer to – say – ten years of age, the pigtails
became big bunches of hair that sat lower on your head, and much closer to your
face. Thus you had graduated from being
Cindy to being Marcia.
And if that doesn’t make sense ... you weren’t a child of the seventies
Eek I remember my mother cutting my hair that was ling eniugh to sit on to a very short pixie cut. She didn't intend to cut it so short but said she couldn't get it straight & kept chopping. There is a photo somewhere & you can see the unimpressed expression on my face :/ I didn't have a fringe until I was 10ish. My hair was all one length & my mother used to tie my fringe area back from my ears into a ponytail ontop, which would end up to the side by the end of the day. I remember those soft rope ribbons very well & baubles. I got a crimper late 70's & still have it. Times have changed with all these hair straighteners etc from the days of my grandmother tying her hair with rags overnight to make curls. Thanks Marianne for yet again another happy flashback to the 70's
ReplyDeleteHehehe I remember those home haircuts, which always ended up shorter than planned, thanks to Mum trimmng one side higher than the other, and having to 'even it up.'
ReplyDeleteThe pulled-back fringe ponytail you describe: someone told me mothers did that to encourage the hair to grow in that direction (ie back instead of forward onto the face) and that ideally you needed to start doing it when the girl was about three. No idea if it's true.
Crimpers, didn't see those until my late teens, and didn't dare risk the damage since I had a perm *cough* haha. My girlfriend though, had long blonde straight hair, and would create a little topknot ponytail and crimp just that - looked pretty cool to me :-)
At least you had hair that could be chopped off and regrow. I never went through that, my hair just was so thin, after a few centimeters it would stop growing altogether, or rather, disintegrate. ;-)
ReplyDeleteToday May 9th Vidal Sassoon dies, the creator of Mia Farrow's pixie cut. You must have upset him very much.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone actually remember the name of the rope ribbon? Or where you can get it from? Please and thank you.
ReplyDeleteGood question, Jude. When I wrote this, I wondered what to call them, and how to google them. I don't know where U live, but I'm sure that here in Australia in the 70s, they were known as 'doodies' (I know! that's probably why we preferred to call them rope ribbons) ... does that ring any bells? I have NO idea where you could buy them - maybe a craft shop or needlecraft store that sells trims and buttons, might sell it by the metre? I remember Mum knotting the ends of mine off so they wouldn't fray, and that I didn't like the way it looked.
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