Not liking the fashionable
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Category: Hair Talk
Forum Name: Hair Politics
Forum Description: The politics of Hair is a slippery slope...
URL: https://talk.hairboutique.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=8800
Printed Date: May 14 2024 at 8:41am
Topic: Not liking the fashionable
Posted By: duke
Subject: Not liking the fashionable
Date Posted: October 21 2003 at 5:04am
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I have discussed the issue of conformism on these boards and would like to ask a question in order to further study this issue. I would like you guys to give me specific examples of: 1) times in the past when some hairstyle was fashionable but you decided AT THE TIME that you didn't like it. 2) times in the past when you got a hairstyle not so much because you thought it looked good, but because your stylist convinced you to, or you wanted to look "like everyone else". Did you regret it afterward, or were you just happy to be fashionable for the sake of fashion - and did you laugh about the style in later years (I bet many people laugh about what they did in high school)? Since people seem to think, as an old saying goes, that "the present fashion is always handsome", I would be interested in seeing how many people do not let their tastes be swayed by whatever is "in" at the moment. |
Replies:
Posted By: Kuroneko
Date Posted: October 21 2003 at 5:33am
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I can't recall ever getting a certain style because it was fashionable. I do remember once using that as an excuse, though; a stylist was trying to get me to grow my hair, but I didn't want to, so I told her I'd heard short hair was coming back into fashion. *shrugs* I dunno if it really was or not, but I got what I wanted, so I was happy. Oh, and styles that are fashionable but you don't like them at the time, well, I always thought Jennifer Aniston's hair was ugly. . . and those really long, straight, middle-parted styles people have been wearing a lot the past few years? I despise those more than almost anything else :-P . But as a child in the '80s, I have to admit I really admired all the girls in my school with bobs. Even though I utterly hate bobs now (so boring! and they're just long enough to get in the way, but not long enough to pony, so they annoy me :-P ) I really liked them at the time. ------------- More awesome than a manatee! |
Posted By: Unregistered Guest
Date Posted: October 21 2003 at 6:59am
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This isn't quite the situation you describe, but on the same track: I am a white male consultant in his 40's. My clients are successful business people, lawyers, etc. EVERYONE I work with has conservative, neat, short haircuts. I am in the process of growing my hair long for the first time in my life. It is several inches long now, and I am going through the painful process of learning how to "style" my hair in the morning. I am also trying to figure out what kinds of hair goop I need to use, since for the last 40 years all I ever needed was whatever shampoo was on sale. And yes, I am getting that (still subtle) pressure to cut my hair. Let's see what they say when it is longer... Mr. Happy |
Posted By: uzma
Date Posted: October 21 2003 at 9:57am
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During the early 80s in London, the punk styles were being overtaken by the new romantic look. New romantics had fluffy, curly big hair for the girls (and various versions of the mullet for boys). I was at art college at the time and all these fresh influences washed over me like a tide. Although most of my fellow students conformed to the new fashion by having perms etc, I was not at all enarmoured of the trends. Furthermore, I have thick, black, straight hair and was not interested in adopting a look or style that (a) I didn’t identify with and (b) if I had liked it would mean using harsh chemicals and constant effort to maintain. Something I did not care to do. About 4 years ago, I went to a hairdresser and asked him to cut my hair. It was just touching my earlobes and I wasn't used to having hair that long!! The hairdresser was Mr Trendy and although I knew that, I was in a hurry and too tired to care about what he did to my hair as long as it meant I didn’t have to think about it or care for it – something short and easy to maintain was what I asked for. Well – he went crazy with his scissors. He was moving his arms around a lot and working his hands through my head quite roughly. I thought it was unnecessarily dramatic at the time but gave him leeway because he obviously considered himself an “artiste”. His cutting seemed very random, but I just waited to see the result. And what were the results? Awful. I went home and for the first time in many years considered my image in the mirror. Yes – I was now fashionably styled. But the hair on my head was disassociated from the person it was attached to. I could not relate to the “messages” that hairstyle was sending. I felt paralysed for a couple of hours, not knowing whether to go back and ask for another cut or to go to another hairdresser. I was now more tired then when I had stepped into the salon and upset as well. So I picked up my kitchen scissors and butchered the cut. I cut my hair very, very short to remove all trace of that style. Then I washed it a few times very vigourously to eliminate the smell of the wax that he had put into it. I can’t describe to you how I felt both relieved and horrified at the end of that day. Conclusion: Fashion is someone or some groups’ idea of what is temporarily tasteful. These people and their ideas (whatever the artistic and commercial motive) are nothjing to do with me. The are external and incongruent to who I am. I am not interested in anything they do and say and they have no influence upon me whatsoever. ------------- Uzi |
Posted By: enfys
Date Posted: October 21 2003 at 5:07pm
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1. I never liked the Jennifer Aniston thing either. Also I haven't ever gone for a fashionable style deliberately. If long hair's in, it's in. I don't care. I haven't gone for one of those silly flicky out bob things like Dido etc. made popular. One look at Judy Finnigan is enough of a deterent for any sane person, IMO. 2. I don't go to salons. Don't trust them- I've heard more than enough stories thank you very much. My mum always did my hair for me until I was old enough to do it myself. For about three years no-one but me has been allowed near my hair with any sharp impliments.  ------------- http://www.myspace.com/waltzin_with_the_open_sea - http://www.myspace.com/waltzin_with_the_open_sea Ah-ha, a place I can soon add hair pics...once I do some |
Posted By: DaveDecker
Date Posted: November 02 2003 at 9:45pm
Hi enfys, You reminded me of a recent near-encounter. I was sitting in the lobby of a building one weekday waiting for a lunch buddy. In walked a woman, attractive in all regards except for the style you describe (only worse -- very short and flipped up in back to look like a reverse duck bill). I thought to myself, "what on earth possessed her to want to wear her hair like that?" I contemplated asking her, "excuse me, where did you have your hair done?" and then calling the BBB right then and there, "yes, I'd like to issue a complaint against the xyz salon..." But I wisely chose not to do so. Instead, I unwisely decided to share this here!  ------------- |
enfys wrote:Posted By: demodoll
Date Posted: November 05 2003 at 11:16am
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Because my hair is fine and thin I have never been able to wear the fashionable styles. I don't worry much about it now although it used to cause me a lot of anguish. I have a hairdresser who understands my hair and me and he cuts and colors it so I don't have to fuss with it much. That is what matters most to me. As long as it looks attractive and kind of neat (I am not a fan of bedhead) I am happy with it. ------------- "It is better to look marvelous than to feel marvelous" Billy Crystal |
Posted By: Unregistered Guest
Date Posted: December 10 2003 at 4:30pm
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1) times in the past when some hairstyle was fashionable but you decided AT THE TIME that you didn't like it. Back in the early 90's, I used to have my hair layered around 3 inches all over, collar length at the back, to my ear lobes at the sides and eyebrow length at the front. The fashion then evolved to having the ear line slowly going to half-way up the ear, then 3/4's up the ear and then finally to a diagonal line that just covered the ear. On several occasions I'd ask for a trim, and the stylist would give me one of these styles, until I cottoned on to what was happening and specified the actual length I wanted the sides. (I still have my hair cut collar length/eyebrow length/earlobe length) despite the attempts of the UK hair industry :) |
Posted By: duke
Date Posted: January 25 2004 at 11:38am
| Allow me to philosophize a bit more on this subject and ask a question to all who can relate to it. There are not a few people out there who laugh today at how they wore their hair in the '80s (mullets, mall bangs, big curly sprayed hair and so on). If you're one of those, why do you laugh now yet once were presumably nonchalant about the style (back then)? |
Posted By: pixie lady
Date Posted: January 25 2004 at 12:37pm
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I've never worn a hairstyle I didn't like. When I was a teenager I wore long staraight hair, and it looked good then and it would look good now. Then I got a bob cut. The same thing, it looked good then and it would look good now. And now that I'm 27 going on 28 years old, I wear an attractive short pixie. It would look good in any era. I have never worn corny or terrible looking hairstyles like mullets or puffed up big hair or any of that. They looked stupid then and they look stupid now, those kinds of hairstyles never look good. A good hairstyle is like good music. The great classical symphonies, jazz, and classic rock music, the best of those styles of music, still sound good today. The best music of the present will sound good ten or twenty years from now. The same with hairstyles. There are some very classy hairstyles from the 1920s, 1930s,1940s, 1950s, etc. that still look good. Some hairstyles from that era look less good. Same with clothes. If you have good taste in music, fashion, or clothes, all of that stuff, the best of it, is good in any era. The bad stuff isn't. |
Posted By: Kuroneko
Date Posted: January 26 2004 at 4:29am
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I've never had any of those styles, but I'd have to guess people laugh at them now but didn't then because at the time they were considered cool. They laugh now because those styles aren't considered cool anymore. The same thing happens with clothes-- what's high fashion one year might be laughed at as ridiculous the next, just because it isn't cool anymore. Once fashion cycles around and the ridiculous styles are in again, like the way some people now wear floppy '70s-inspired hairstyles again, then it's considered cool again and nobody laughs. ------------- More awesome than a manatee! |