1940s Hairstyles

Heads Up, Redheads--You're It; Heads Down, Blonds--For Dyeing!

September 1, 1940

HOLLYWOOD—Calling all blonds—golden, peroxide or platinum! Better hurry up and dye those golden tresses red, sister—or else you shortly may find your coiffeur as out of date as pigtails and schoolgirl curls.

And don't forget, when painting your lips, to give them fuller and more generous lines to create the effect of a larger mouth.

These are the latest of hints from Screenland’s beauty experts, whose make-up creations not only set hair and facial styles for the glamor gals of the screen but also the working gals who go to the movies to see them.

The days of the blonds are numbered, they say, not only on the screen but also on the street. It’s the redheads who are setting the fashions.

“We are getting away from various blond types for the Screen and swinging over to red hair," said Walter Pearce, who has just assumed direction of the 20th Century-Fox makeup department after five years of beauty study abroad.

“There is so much more life in red hair than in any other color—so many more highlights and shadows for beautiful photography that are not present in blonds or brunets."

For screen work, Pearce has recommended use of red wigs when they are more practical or when an actress without naturally auburn tresses prefers not to resort to dye.

Trends in lip beauty definitely have swung to the creation of a fuller and more generous mouth effect, said Pearce, in revealing that there virtually are no actresses today whose natural mouth curvature is not completely painted over to give it an entirely different and photogenic effect.

"Mouths of all actresses, as seen on the screen, are decidedly much bigger than they were ten years ago and have much more character," said Pearce, "than when the trend ran toward those awful cupid-bows. Large mouths always photograph better than small ones."

As for eyebrows, Pearce says to select a curvature style best suited to your own particular type of beauty—but don’t overdo it.

Full Glamour

The makeup style of that era was matching--wearing the same color lipstick as nail polish. This was the result of a marketing scheme introducted by Revlon to double sales.

But 1940s glamour went beyond lipstick and nail polish to hair. It was complete glamour. 1940s hairstyles are indeed still considered some of the most glamorous evening hair designs today.

Short bob hairstyles of the 1930s were gone; women typically had long side-parted styles in the 1940s with beautiful hairlines.

Modern Hairdos Go Medieval

August 5, 1948

When Victor Vito, New York hairdresser, heard that Hollywood was filming a movie about Joan of Arc, he anticipated a trend to medieval hairdos, and designed a few. He was right. Every hour of the day modern Joan's line up in his salon to get their hair snipped into medieval charm.

None of the Vito versions is as short as the movie coiffure. Most of them are altered to suit the features of the girl. The majority of them are variations of his trend-setting "cut and dry" which needs no pin setting and is cut so as to encourage a natural wave in the hair--a time-saver popular with career girls, in particular.

Any bright girl, says Victor, can give herself a "cut and dry" hairdo at home. Or, if she doesn’t trust herself with the shears, she can get a straight-around haircut with bangs, from her local hairdresser or barber.

After the haircut (cut it straight around), shampoo your hair, rinse it with beer, turn the hair under at the ends or slightly up by grasping it in the palm of your hand and turning your fist over it to press it into shape.

This medieval coiffure is a casual one, and that’s why the modern girl likes it, Victor thinks. Her twentieth-century world, he says, is as active as Joan’s, who probably wore her hair in a simple arrangement to avoid getting battle fatigue worrying about her coiffure.

Comments

This is one of the funniest crazy hair fashions in history. I had to check the date to see if it was an April Fool's Joke. The 1940s produced some styles that are still copied today and will likely always be appreciated in the years to come. But it also had some serious disasters that will never desecrate women's heads ever again. There's nothing wrong with films as a source of inspiration. But, come on! Choose The Gilda, not The Joan. You're better off looking like a nun in a convent than wearing this bowl-shaped monstrosity. When a remake of the Joan of Arc film was made in 1999, fortunately Milla Jovovich didn't start a new trend. Women now aren't so tacky. But lookout for the fool on toptenz.net who wrote, "You can't go wrong with a hairstyle inspired by Joan of Arc." It's perfect if you want to appear as if you lost your mind or you're ready to be burned at the stake.