Devil’s Haircut

The oldest known depiction of hair braiding dates back about 30,000 years. In ancient civilizations, women’s hair was often elaborately and carefully dressed in special ways. In Imperial Rome, women wore their hair in complicated styles. From the time of the Roman Empire until the Middle Ages, most women grew their hair as long as it would naturally grow.

During the Roman Empire as well as in the 16th century in the western world, women began to wear their hair in extremely ornate styles. In the later half of the 15th century and on into the 16th century a very high hairline on the forehead was considered attractive. During the 15th and 16th centuries, European men wore their hair cropped no longer than shoulder-length. In the early 17th century male hairstyles grew longer, with waves or curls being considered desirable.

From the 16th to the 19th century, European women’s hair became more visible while their hair coverings grew smaller. In the middle of the 18th century the pouf style developed. During the First World War, women around the world started to shift to shorter hairstyles that were easier to manage. In the early 1950s women’s hair was generally curled and worn in a variety of styles and lengths.

In the 1960s, many women began to wear their hair in short modern cuts such as the pixie cut, while in the 1970s, hair tended to be longer and looser. In both the 1960s and 1970s many men and women wore their hair very long and straight. In the 1980s, women pulled back their hair with scrunchies, and punk hairstyles were adopted by many people. Then, something brilliant and vaguely demonic seems to have taken over.