Sarah Zama's Blog, page 60

Olympic Games Rio 2016. See you in Tokyo

And so the Olympic Games are over.

I’m always a bit melanchonic when the Closing Ceremony comes. Don’t you feel a little sad when the fire dies in that caudron? But then, as all good things, we can look forward for next time.

I was on holiday so I could really enjoy the Games… well, all exept the track-and-fields because they happened at unholy times here in Italy (like from 1:00 to 5:00 am… I just couldn’t handle it). It’s kind of a shame not to see the track-and-fields events on an Olimpiad, but then, what I did watch was very very nice on my part. Italy did very well, let me tell you, and with a few emotional moments.

You know I don’t normally talk about primarily Italian stuff, but these are the Games, let me share it with you. And please, share your own country’s victories in the comments. These are the Games. It’s about ‘our country’ and about ‘all of us’ too.

So let me be parochial to the end and give a special mention to Elia Viviani first of all, who won golden medal in the omnium and is a child of Isola della Scala like me.

It is always nice when your country wins, but when someone from your own town wins is a completely different, exhilarating sensation. You know, thinking that he was born here, in a place that offers so little, and still he managed to become one of the best in his specialty. He travelled to the other side of the world to compete in the most important sport games and if this were not enough, he won a gold medal. In a fantastic match too. He even fell, run down by another biker, but he stood up, climbed on his bike again and rode to victory.

Beautiful!

There are so many good moments of the Games I’ll remember. Tania Caniotto, who won two medals in diving, including a silver medal in the last match of her career. I was so happy for her. I’ve followed her all through her career and she has been unlucky so many times. I’m happy her last dive was such a success.

Daniele Lupo and Paolo Nicolai who were the first Italian beach volley team ever competing in a final match and won a silver… after Daniele Lupo defeated cancer last year.

Nicolò Campriani who won not one, but two gold medals in shooting. Diana Bacosi and Chiara Cainero who won gold and silver in the skeet (beautiful match that too). Giovanni Pellielo, who at 46 has won a silver medal in men’s trap at his fifth Olympiad and is thinking to go to Tokyo too.

Elisa di Francisca, silver in foil, who upheld the European flag against terrorism at her prize giving.

The reborn Settebello (bronze in men’s water polo) and the incredibly strong Ital Volley (silver), such a tight knitted team, with a few very strong players. I had lost touch with the volley team in these last years and I was so pleased to discover they are so strong once more. I’ve watch the semi-final and final matches and it was absolutely fantastic.

A mention goes to Federica Pellegrini too, who after her fourth place in the 400m free style (her favourite) thought about retiring so disappointed she was. And Rachele Bruni, who dedicated her silver medal in the 10km marathon to her girl friend and was criticize for her coming out.

But there would be so many other stories and athletes to mention.

#Rio2016, da #Fiamingo all’#italvolley tutte le medaglie azzurre #ITA https://t.co/Vpsd7QxFOHhttps://t.co/bX4OZXBRBc

— la Repubblica (@repubblicait) 22 agosto 2016

And of course, let me mention other people who were inspiring in these Games, starting with the last performances (and what a brillint ones!) of Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt. The young talent of Simone Baile, who smashed me with her gymnastique astistique artistry. And Yusra Mardini from the Refugee Team who didn’t win any medal, but was at the Olympic Games after saving 20 people with her swimming skills while fleeing Syria.

It’s all about people, this is why I love the Games. I can’t wait for Tokio!

But in the meanwhile, hey guys, following my post about Jesse Ownes and his friendship with Luz Long in Nazi Germany Opimpics, I’ll post about Jim Thorpe soon. I wanted to post yesterday but… well, it didn’t happen. But stay tuned!

And I want to say goodbye to the games with one of the best commercials I’ve seen on tv these days. I know I’ve already posted one from Samsung. I don’t get anything from them, I swear, they just have super content marketing team. And I love anything story, so…

It’s all about people.

 

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Don’t you know that you’re toxic?

Well, let me tell you that this is the first time I hear Melinda Doolittle and I really really like her. She’s an incredible voice and I love her style.

This is of course a cover of Britney Spears’s Toxic from the Postmodern Jukebox. I’m sorry Britney, but…

The post Don’t you know that you’re toxic? appeared first on The Old Shelter.

How things can be between the men on this Earth – Olympic Games, Berlin 1936

When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn’t ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn’t live where I wanted. I wasn’t invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn’t invited to the White House to shake hands with the president, either.

The son of sharecroppers and the grandson of slaves, Jesse Owens was born in Alabama in 1913 and his childhood was spent working in the fields with his family. It was only when he moved to Ohio that he became a major track-and-fields athlete while attending high school in Cleveland.

When the United States left for Berlin and the XI Olympic Games in 1936, he was one of the 17 African American athletes in the US 311 athletes delegation.

 

A phenomenal Propaganda for the Aryan Race

In 1931, the International Olympic Committee awarded the 1936 Summer Games to Berlin. The WWI post-war years had been terrible for Germany. Condemned to pay huge war debts, left out from many international organizations, including the Society of Nations, Germany had struggled with economic and social issues and with a mounting resentment towards everyone.

In later years the pressure on Germany had lessened and the assignment of the Olympic Games was meant to be a signal of Germany’s return to the world community.

Nobody foresaw that in 1933 the Weimar Republic would fall and Hitler would come to power.

The true Olympic spirit and the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936 #OlympicGames
Click To Tweet

Initially, Hitler disregarded the Games as unimportant in his overall political action, but Joseph Gobbles later convinced him that the Games could be used as a phenomenal propaganda of the superiority of the Aryan race in an international context.

The Third Reich then moulded the Games into a completely new experience. The most modern architectures, show techniques and marketing skills were used. Cinema was heavily involved. Leni Riefentahl documented the event in a modern, gorgeous film. It was a spectacular show like never was seen before… but it would be seen many times afterward. The Berlin Games set the blueprint for the Opening Ceremony as we still know it today. In fact one of the most characteristic experiences of the Games as we know them, the lighting of the Olympic cauldron with a torch carried by relay form Olympia, was first performed in Berlin.

By 1935 many nations were planning to boycott the Games in Berlin. The US participation was narrowly approved in December of that year. In the end 41 nations took part at the Games.

With 348 athletes, Germany had the largest national team and captured the most medals overall, but Americans dominated the track-and-fields competitions, which were the most popular.

The story is often simplified to just saying that Hitler refused to shake hands with Jesse Owens after one of his victories. What actually happened was that on the first day of competitions, Hitler left the stadium after three African Americans swept the high-jumps competitions, so it is unclear whether he left to avoid shaking hands with them. After that, he was required to either shake hands with all winners or with none and he chose the latter. However he continued receiving German winners privately.

Jesse Owens was the star of the Berlin Games and was enthusiastically supported by the largely German audience. He won 4 gold medals, more than any athletes ever before. He broke two world records and set the record for broad jump that would last 25 years.

And after the Games, ages only 23, he retired from athletics forever.

 

In True Olympic Spirit

Luz Long

It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler. You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn’t be a plating to the 24-karat friendship I felt for Luz Long.

Luz Long was a broad jumper in the German team. He was tall, athletic, blond, pale-eyed. Basically the epitome of the Aryan race as the Nazi Party promoted it through the Games.

The story as you will hear it more often, as Owens told it many times goes like this: He olmost missed the qualification for the broad jump. Owens fouled his first two attempts. He only had one left and if he fouled that too, he would be out. Before he jumped, Luz Long, one of his German competitors, approached him and gave him an advice on how to carry the jump. Owens followed his advice… and later won a gold medal and set that 25-standing world records.

There are doubts that the story is true, that the two athletes ever spoke before Owens’s jump, but there is no doubt Long, who won silver, was the first to compliment Owens. No doubts the two became friends and remained friends ‘til the day Long died in 1943, fighting for Germany in WWII.

A final letter to Owens reads, in part

Someday find my son… tell him about how things can be between men on this earth.

———————-

NPR – Was Jesse Owens’ 1936 Long-Jump Stroy a Myth?

Sports Feel Good Stories – Jesse Owens and Luz Long – Olympic Heroes (1936)

Bio – Jesse Owens – Track and Field Athlete (1913-1980)

History – This Day in History 9th August 1936: Owens Wins 4th Gold Medals

Letters of Note – Tell Him About His Father

The post How things can be between the men on this Earth – Olympic Games, Berlin 1936 appeared first on The Old Shelter.

Gotta Stay High All My Life

Another nice jazzy cover by Haley Reinhart with the Postmodern Jukebox. This is from Tove Lo, the song Habits.

I kind of like the original, but I have to admit that l like the 1930s jazz version a lot more. I know, I know, it’s me. But what about you? What do you think?

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Thursday Quotables – The Wolf in the Attic

And on the left I glimpse something else through the trees, a great dark shape rising up out of the ground. It is a mound set in its own clearing, and surrounded by old beeches that are taller than houses.

I slow as we approach it. “Keep up,” Luca says in a whisper. But my feet feel heavy, and it is as though there is a great cold stone in my stomach which wants to drag its way down through me to the clay and chalk of the path.

There is a light off in the trees, a flicker of fire by the black bulk of the mould and as we creep on I am sure I hear the ringing tap of a hammer on metal.

We are level with it now. Fire leaps up in a red flag of flame and shadows are going back and forth in front of it along with the rhythmic tap of the hammer. Something large blocks out the light as completely as a curtain for a second, and I clasp Luca’s hand until our bones quake together and feel that I have to stop, that I cannot move another step. But he pulls on me, breathing hard, and something deep and liquid and animal-like comes out of his mouth, a low snarl. I tear my eyes away from the mould and see the light in his, as silver as the moon but washed with green. And his lips have drawn back from his teeth like the face of a frightened dog.

I think I hear a horse whinny, and the stamp of its hooves seems to echo in the very earth below us. I cannot drag my gaze away from the mound and the flicker of fire. The silhouette moves across it again, and it is man-like; but just for a second I am sure I see a rack of antlers on its head.

We stagger on two steps, then three more, and I can feel the weight on my bowels lift a little, but just as we are about to get by I hear a new thing. It is a low sobbing, someone in pain at the side of the track.

And in the trees there I can make out the tumbled outline of a fallen stone, a megalith twice my height. The weeping comes from it, a sound to wretch the heart.

“Luca—“ I whisper.

“Walk on.”

“There’s someone—“

“Walk on!”

He has my hand in a grip I cannot break, and my arm feels limp as rope as he tugs on it. I crane my head around, searching in the dark. And I think I see someone lying on the ground by the great fallen stone.

The Wolf in the Attic by Paul Kearney is one of the most peculiar books I’ve ever read. It would be easy to say it is set in Oxford in 1929, but the setting is far more complex than that. It’s a fantastic mix of historical reality and legendary reality if this makes any sense. Oxford like it used to be and the countryside around it as it might have been, populated of spirits and presences that slip into the real world especially at certain time of the year, like New Year Eve.

It’s a spellbinding place and I would have read about it forever so fascinating it was.

Anna, the twelve-year-old protagonist, is a remarkable characters. She’s naive like her age suggests, but she’s also very mature for her age, maybe because of the ordeals she went through. She’s a Greek refugee who survived the Turk invasion and destruction of her city, Smyrna.

I really like the way Anna deals with her Greek native identity and her English acquired identity. Both identities are true and important to her and she accepts this as natural, without angst or discomfort.

She’s also a girl that never loses heart, no matter what horrible things happen to her. She’s an endearing character.

And let me tell you that, being a Tolkien fan, I loved the echoes of Tolkien’s work in this story (you might have recognise one such episode in the excerpt above). Some of Tolkien’s ideas mingled so naturally in this story that I had no doubt they belonged here, even when I recognised the origin.

Really a beautiful book.

The post Thursday Quotables – The Wolf in the Attic appeared first on The Old Shelter.

Olympism

Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of a good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.

– Pierre de Coubertin

To the ancient Greeks the Olympiades were far more than just sporting games. They were sacred rituals where men offered their body and their efforts to the gods.

Olympiades where so vital to the life of ancient Greeks that time and the games merged with the myth: at the very begnning, time and the Olympiades were born together. For the ancient Greeks, their history, which happened in a far away time where humanity and gods lived together, where born together with the Olympiades.

In fact, anciente Greeks calculated time with the Olympiades, which were not only the actual event, but the period of four years in between. So a Greek would say, the second year of the tenth olympiade to determine the year.

I dont’ think we can understand today what the Olympiades meant for the people who brought them into the world, but I see why XIX century people were fascinated with them to the point of resurrecting them. It’s an idea that goes beyond just sports. And I think that even in our world, where athletes are professionals and compete for money, where the Games are often turned into a cyrcus and nothing about them is remotely sacred, a part of what they meant to our ancestors still lives. We still see values in the competitions. Maybe a little, far away part of us still remembers.

I like to believe it.

———————————————–

History – 6th April 1896 – First modern Olimpics is held

Ancient History Encyclopedia – Olympic Games (definition)

British Museum – The Olympic Games in Ancient Greece

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This is the gangsta’s paradise

Hey guys, it’s the high of summer and I’ve decided to go light for this month. So what about some music to listen to in these hot summer days. You may even want to start dancing.

Well, you may.

On Saturdays this month, I’ll share some of the Postmodern Jukebox tracks that I like the most. I hope you’ll enjoy them too.

I’ll start with this Gangster’s Paradise, which I’ve always loved since it came out in 1995 as part of the soundtrack of the film Dangerous Minds. It is actually based on a old song by Stevie Wonder, Pastime Paradise, which is a beautiful song, if you ask me.

Have a look to the link, you won’t regret it. And enjoy this new cover by the Postmodern Jukebox featuring Robyn Adele Anderson.

 

 

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And after four years… Rio 2016 – Olympic Games

I have a confession to make. I love the Olympic Games.

Or should I say I’m addicted to the Olympic Games.

I fell in love with the Games when I was 12 and I’ve never follen out. It was Los Angeles 1984. What happened? I don’t know. I just discovered the Games and I wanted to know everything about them. I followed them on TV, didn’t miss a game. I cheered the Italian team like crazy, though I also appreciated other athletes as well. As a matter of fact, my favourite athlete that year was Carl Lewis. He always was until the day he retired and I still damned my work timetable that didn’t allow me to assit to his last jump at Atlanta’s Games in 1996. It is just not fair that I didn’t see him jump that last time.

Well… I suppose I have to live with that…

It is still not fair.

I’ve always, always followed the Game ever since.

In 2013 the Winter Olympic Games were held here in Italy, I could see the Olympic Flame passing through Verona. It was such an emotion.

If you asked me why I like the Olympic Games this much… I really don’t know.

I like sport in general (though I don’t practice any) because I think it’s one of those things that can make us better people. It can teach us to reach for the best we can give and accept our shortcomings. Accept there are people who are better fitted then us, and that’s ok, because we can learn from them. I think sports can teach us to live better with ourseves and with each other.

And call me a romantic (which sure I am), but I love the idea that once upon a time, wars were kept on hold to allow the Games. I love the idea that our ancestors (well, at least the ancestors of European people like me) thought that history started with the Games, that time started with the Games, that all higher values started with the Games.

And so it begins!

And guess what. Two kids from my town Isola della Scala will be there (six athletes form Verona and its province will be in Rio). Give me that flag! I’m going to cheeeeeeeeeerrrrr!!!!!

The post And after four years… Rio 2016 – Olympic Games appeared first on The Old Shelter.

Cut It And Bob It: Flapper Jane Seeks the Boyish Look

Women bobbing their hair created debate all over the 1920s. Nobody seemed to really like the boyish cut, but as it was true for so much of the New Woman’s look, it never was a mere matter of pure fashion.

The dramatic break with the past

One of the more sensual and feminine features of the Gibson Girl was her hair. She wore it long, very long, then coiffed it in complex ways on her head, with pins and ribbons. The Gibson Girl dedicated a lot of time to her hair because that was a sign of distinction. But like the ponderous clothes that hindered her movements, the focus on a lustrous, intricately coiffed hair was an unspoken way to bind her to the house, because the mere amount of time she needed to take care of her hair limited her available time for other activities.

No surprise then that one of the first things the New Woman of the 1920s did was cropping her hair. Very short.

It’s very hard for us women (and men) of nearly 100 years later to fully understand what kind of revolution that was.

Almost nobody seemed to like the bob. Not on aesthetic grounds. Hairdressers always tried to dissuade girls  from cropping their hair, with very scant effects. The Chicago Daily Tribune in 1925 reported a girl commenting on her new cut, “It is comical, isn’t it? But it’s new. I’ll try it out for a while, although it makes me feel as though I hadn’t got any clothes on.”

Girls felt uncomfortable, but they still did it. In the same article of the Chicago Daily it is stated, “Brushing your hair back leaving your forehead and your ears exposed like a boy’s, is more of a test of personality than it is of beauty.”

For a girl, bobbing her hair meant embracing a new concept of life. Many of them claimed to do it because it was far more comfortable in an increasingly busy life. It was carefree and less troublesome to care for than the long mane so common in previous eras. It was informal and made it easier for women to remain well groomed during the busy campus and working day.

All the rest of society appeared to have a very hard time accepting women’s choice of hairstyle. All through the decade, newspaper repeatedly predicted the end of the bob.

All sort of legend flourished around it, such as that cropping a woman’s hair could damage her skin, causing eruptions. That hair could start bleeding (siringing was advised to prevent this). That bobbing one’s hair would cause it to shad.

And when women – even older women – kept bobbing their hair, it was claimed that they would actually want to go back to long hair, but they hated the in-between status when the hair wasn’t neither long nor short, which looked so untidy they ended up just cropping it once again.

the 1920s bob #hairstyle was a social statment from every woman who dared wering it
Click To Tweet

Freedom of choice and sex-appeal

But there was a lot more to it and prove it is that bobbed hair was often attacked not only because it was ugly, but because it was dangerous. It was thought to be a symbol of female promiscuity, of explicit sexuality and of self-conscious denial of respectabilities and domestic ideals. Women who bobbed their hair were the ones that went out dating boys they didn’t actually mean to merry. Who smoked and drank like men. Who painted their faces. Who went out clubbing in illegal speakeasies and danced the outrageous new jazz dances.

This was what they meant when they said they had a busy life that demanded a more carefree look and for most of critiques, they were in so doing refusing everything which was expected from a nice girl.

As for their young men counterparts, most of them found the bob attractive. The look of it might have been strange and comical to them too, but once we suspend absolute definition of sexual attractiveness, we can begin to see the sexuality implicit in bobbed hair in the context of the period. It was not mannish but liberating.

While we women of the XXI century cropping our hair is a matter of fashion and personal preferences, for the New Woman of the 1920s it was a social statement. By bobbing her hair, she declared her freedom from the old feminine ideals bond to the house, motherhood and marriage. The New Woman declared she was as good as any man, she could do whatever men did. She was free to choose every aspect of her life and nobody could decide for her.

This idea, expressed from the cutting with the past and the cutting of her hair, was what young men found attractive and other people found scary.

A new woman in the mirror

me in many different fashions with many names that, in line with the flapper’s extravagant language, had many funny names (what about a coconut bob?). But there were a few main versions.

Shingle

It was made famous by Louise Brooks and was a very short bob with a tapered back.

Bangs were very common with this cut. They were cut straight across covering the eyebrows, or were heart-shaped. The sides of the bangs were curved into points resting on the cheekbones.

Eaton Crop

This was the shortest cut and took its name from the famous English college where boys wore their hair slightly longer than was common for the era. It was essentially a man’s cut with fully exposed ears and often a shaved neck. It may have be further flatten down by using brilliantine that plastered the hair to the skull.

The Eaton cut made the kiss curls very popular (the kiss curls remained popular even when the short-lived Eaton wore off). These were perfect curls sculptured with gel resting on the cheek or the forehead.

Cropped Curls

Although a straight hair was considered more desirable because more elegant, many women wore their curls proudly, like Clara Bow. Some of them discovered their hair to be curled only after cutting off the weight of a long mane.

Finger and Marcel Waves

These were more popular in the late 1920s and remained so for a couple of decades more. Wet hair were sculptured in tight waves with the fingers or with Marcel irons.

Irons came with wood handles and round iron shafts that had to be heated over coals. This operation could turn out to be quite dangerous, since the iron may become overheated and burn the hair more than it curled it.

Permanent wave machines were perfected over the decade and became more common and effective in the later years of the 1920s.

 

Even women who didn’t take the plunge and bob their hair wanted to take advantage of the new fashion. Faux bobs were quite common, especially among older women. They were essentially buns made very flat and sometimes rolled under. A flat hair was necessary in order to wear the fashionable cloches.

 

All this bobbing was mostly done at home, particularly in the early 1920s. Girls would entrust themselves (and their hair) to a friend, a sister, a mother and this may have resulted in less than optimal cuts, which furthered the idea that bobs looked ugly. Because hairdressers were unfamiliar with such short cropped hairstyles, girls started to go to the barber.

Whatever the hairstyle, the hair was supposed to be lustrous, so women, like men, used brilliantine.

Magazines advised to brush the hair often and for a long time and not get scared if many hairs came out because that was a normal occurrence, it just removed hair that would come off anyway.

In the 1920s, women learned a completely new relationship with their hair, one that was according to fashion… but also to women’s new perception of themselves.

Shameless, Selfish and Honest – The changes in society that allowed the coming of the New Woman
The New Woman Appropriates the New Makeup – Women appropriate their sensuality
Flapper Jane Goes Shopping for Makeup – What’s inside a 1920s beautycase

————————————————————————————

Fass, Paula S., The Damned and the Beautiful. American Youth in the 1920s. Oxford University Press, New York, 1977

Speaking of Bobs – Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); Jul 5, 1925; Chicago Tribune pg. B4

The Huffington Post – 1920s hairstyle that defined the decade from the bob to the finger waves

Vintage Dancer – The history of 1920s hairstyle: from long hair to bobbed hair

The post Cut It And Bob It: Flapper Jane Seeks the Boyish Look appeared first on The Old Shelter.

Cut It And Curl It: Flapper Jane Seeks the Boyish Look

Women bobbing their hair created debate all over the 1920s. Nobody seemed to really like the boyish cut, but as it was true for so much of the New Woman’s look, it never was a mere matter of pure fashion.

The dramatic break with the past

One of the more sensual and feminine features of the Gibson Girl was her hair. She wore it long, very long, then coiffed it in complex ways on her head, with pins and ribbons. The Gibson Girl dedicated a lot of time to her hair because that was a sign of distinction. But like the ponderous clothes that hindered her movements, the focus on a lustrous, intricately coiffed hair was an unspoken way to bind her to the house, because the mere amount of time she needed to take care of her hair limited her available time for other activities.

No surprise then that one of the first things the New Woman of the 1920s did was cropping her hair. Very short.

It’s very hard for us women (and men) of nearly 100 years later to fully understand what kind of revolution that was.

Almost nobody seemed to like the bob. Not on aesthetic grounds. Hairdressers always tried to dissuade girls  from cropping their hair, with very scant effects. The Chicago Daily Tribune in 1925 reported a girl commenting on her new cut, “It is comical, isn’t it? But it’s new. I’ll try it out for a while, although it makes me feel as though I hadn’t got any clothes on.”

Girls felt uncomfortable, but they still did it. In the same article of the Chicago Daily it is stated, “Brushing your hair back leaving your forehead and your ears exposed like a boy’s, is more of a test of personality than it is of beauty.”

For a girl, bobbing her hair meant embracing a new concept of life. Many of them claimed to do it because it was far more comfortable in an increasingly busy life. It was carefree and less troublesome to care for than the long mane so common in previous eras. It was informal and made it easier for women to remain well groomed during the busy campus and working day.

All the rest of society appeared to have a very hard time accepting women’s choice of hairstyle. All through the decade, newspaper repeatedly predicted the end of the bob.

All sort of legend flourished around it, such as that cropping a woman’s hair could damage her skin, causing eruptions. That hair could start bleeding (siringing was advised to prevent this). That bobbing one’s hair would cause it to shad.

And when women – even older women – kept bobbing their hair, it was claimed that they would actually want to go back to long hair, but they hated the in-between status when the hair wasn’t neither long nor short, which looked so untidy they ended up just cropping it once again.

the 1920s bob #hairstyle was a social statment from every woman who dared wering it
Click To Tweet

Freedom of choice and sex-appeal

But there was a lot more to it and prove it is that bobbed hair was often attacked not only because it was ugly, but because it was dangerous. It was thought to be a symbol of female promiscuity, of explicit sexuality and of self-conscious denial of respectabilities and domestic ideals. Women who bobbed their hair were the ones that went out dating boys they didn’t actually mean to merry. Who smoked and drank like men. Who painted their faces. Who went out clubbing in illegal speakeasies and danced the outrageous new jazz dances.

This was what they meant when they said they had a busy life that demanded a more carefree look and for most of critiques, they were in so doing refusing everything which was expected from a nice girl.

As for their young men counterparts, most of them found the bob attractive. The look of it might have been strange and comical to them too, but once we suspend absolute definition of sexual attractiveness, we can begin to see the sexuality implicit in bobbed hair in the context of the period. It was not mannish but liberating.

While we women of the XXI century cropping our hair is a matter of fashion and personal preferences, for the New Woman of the 1920s it was a social statement. By bobbing her hair, she declared her freedom from the old feminine ideals bond to the house, motherhood and marriage. The New Woman declared she was as good as any man, she could do whatever men did. She was free to choose every aspect of her life and nobody could decide for her.

This idea, expressed from the cutting with the past and the cutting of her hair, was what young men found attractive and other people found scary.

A new woman in the mirror

me in many different fashions with many names that, in line with the flapper’s extravagant language, had many funny names (what about a coconut bob?). But there were a few main versions.

Shingle

It was made famous by Louise Brooks and was a very short bob with a tapered back.

Bangs were very common with this cut. They were cut straight across covering the eyebrows, or were heart-shaped. The sides of the bangs were curved into points resting on the cheekbones.

Eaton Crop

This was the shortest cut and took its name from the famous English college where boys wore their hair slightly longer than was common for the era. It was essentially a man’s cut with fully exposed ears and often a shaved neck. It may have be further flatten down by using brilliantine that plastered the hair to the skull.

The Eaton cut made the kiss curls very popular (the kiss curls remained popular even when the short-lived Eaton wore off). These were perfect curls sculptured with gel resting on the cheek or the forehead.

Cropped Curls

Although a straight hair was considered more desirable because more elegant, many women wore their curls proudly, like Clara Bow. Some of them discovered their hair to be curled only after cutting off the weight of a long mane.

Finger and Marcel Waves

These were more popular in the late 1920s and remained so for a couple of decades more. Wet hair were sculptured in tight waves with the fingers or with Marcel irons.

Irons came with wood handles and round iron shafts that had to be heated over coals. This operation could turn out to be quite dangerous, since the iron may become overheated and burn the hair more than it curled it.

Permanent wave machines were perfected over the decade and became more common and effective in the later years of the 1920s.

 

Even women who didn’t take the plunge and bob their hair wanted to take advantage of the new fashion. Faux bobs were quite common, especially among older women. They were essentially buns made very flat and sometimes rolled under. A flat hair was necessary in order to wear the fashionable cloches.

 

All this bobbing was mostly done at home, particularly in the early 1920s. Girls would entrust themselves (and their hair) to a friend, a sister, a mother and this may have resulted in less than optimal cuts, which furthered the idea that bobs looked ugly. Because hairdressers were unfamiliar with such short cropped hairstyles, girls started to go to the barber.

Whatever the hairstyle, the hair was supposed to be lustrous, so women, like men, used brilliantine.

Magazines advised to brush the hair often and for a long time and not get scared if many hairs came out because that was a normal occurrence, it just removed hair that would come off anyway.

In the 1920s, women learned a completely new relationship with their hair, one that was according to fashion… but also to women’s new perception of themselves.

Shameless, Selfish and Honest – The changes in society that allowed the coming of the New Woman
The New Woman Appropriates the New Makeup – Women appropriate their sensuality
Flapper Jane Goes Shopping for Makeup – What’s inside a 1920s beautycase

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Fass, Paula S., The Damned and the Beautiful. American Youth in the 1920s. Oxford University Press, New York, 1977

Speaking of Bobs – Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); Jul 5, 1925; Chicago Tribune pg. B4

The Huffington Post – 1920s hairstyle that defined the decade from the bob to the finger waves

Vintage Dancer – The history of 1920s hairstyle: from long hair to bobbed hair

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