Bobs, Shingles, And Waves
For the spirited and adventurous woman in the inter-war years one way to show their independence was to wear their hair short. A popular style was the bob cut, which typically fell just below the chin, framing the face. Introduced by the Polish hairdresser, Antoni Cierplikowski, in 1909 and inspired by accounts of Joan of Arc, it symbolized modernity and captured the essence of the Roaring Twenties.
Embraced by the likes of Coco Chanel, Queen Marie of Romania and American film stars such as Clara Bow and Louise Brooks, it soon became the dominant hairstyle. It also had a practical advantage over earlier fashions for long hair as it was easier to maintain. However, as early as 1922 the fashion correspondent of The Times was intimating that bobbed hair was passé and by the middle of the decade it had been replaced in popularity by shingled hair.
Shingling was an even shorter style and was a very involved process to achieve the required effect. It required each curl to be separated and smoothed and then the application of a styling product such as curl cream, gel, or leave-in conditioner to each curl to create a bouncy, defined coil. The process helped smooth the cuticle, creating ultimate definition and making the curls last longer.
The complexity of the process meant that the wearer had to undergo frequent and extensive treatments in a beauty salon which offered other services such as manicures to keep the customer amused and entertained. The wearing of shingled hair was also a class statement. Whereas the bob was achievable for working-class women, shingled hair denoted someone who had the time and money to devote to its maintenance.
The correct response to bobbed and shingled hair vexed employers as a newspaper article from November 1924 reveals. “Recently Lyons and Company, the London caterers, decided that their tea shop girls, who had previously not been allowed to show their hair, may do as they like now”. However, “Romford Board of Guardians decided that no member of the nursing staff will be allowed to bob or shingle, and that women now having short hair must allow it to grow”. The decision was by no means unanimous, one female board member arguing that short hair was hygienic and that no one wanted hair in their food while others wondered whether the board proposed to ban face power and high heels.
Fashions, though, wax and wane and by the 1930s hair was being worn longer again and waved, the Marcel wave being particularly popular. Waves were produced using electric waving irons, which allowed the temperature of the iron to be regulated, and a comb. Initially, the irons only came in one of four sizes – A, B, C, or D – but in 1933 an adjustable iron was developed.
The application of heated tongs could fill the customer with dread, as E M Delafield memorably records in The Provincial Lady Goes Further (1932). “Undergo permanent wave, with customary interludes of feeling that nothing on earth can be worth it, and eventual conviction that it was. The hairdresser (…) assures me that I shall not be left alone whilst the heating is on, and adds gravely that no client ever is left alone at that stage – which has a sinister sound, and terrifies me. However, I emerge safely, and my head is also declared to have come up beautifully – which it has”.
You have to suffer for your fashion, seemingly. Travelling up from rural Devon to have her hair waved, the Provincial Lady sees it as a London thing which will mark out as a fashionista back home. As someone who reads a lot of literature from the period and come across bobs, shingles, and waves it is nice to clarify one’s understanding of the various fashions.
