MYTHBUSTER : Hairstyles in the Golden Era

[Marc Chevalier]

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Call me a mythbuster. I live to clear up misconceptions about Golden Era style. Take this little gem about men's hairstyles in the Golden Era:

... you dont see long hair on the sides, everyone had sidewalls in the old days.

Er, um, .... NO! In the '30s, some men did buzz the sides and backs of their heads, while leaving the hair long at the top. However, these were a minority.

Below are some photos of men's hairstyles shown in ESQUIRE magazine from 1933 to 1939. The hair is surprisingly thick and long, even at the sides. Whitewalls? Not a single example in the bunch:

 

[Marc Chevalier]

 

[CharlieH.]

Now that's hairstyling! Great pictures, Marc.

Gee whiz! How do you make hair defy gravity like that?!? Pomade and yeast?

 

[Marc Chevalier]

For the hair to defy gravity like that, it has to be long and thick in the first place.

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[Vladimir Berkov]

The "sidewalls" look may have been more of a military thing. I was looking at an original picture of a whole mess hall full of soldiers at Ft. Bliss in 1917 and almost every one had the shaved sides and back, long on top style haircut.

 

[MudInYerEye]

DAMN those are some nice heads of hair.

 

["Doc" Devereux]

So that's another myth busted. Can we blow something up now?

Doc wants a big boom!

 

[scotrace]

Aha!

That's my hair. I've let the sides grow out so that it's almost all one length (though off my ears) and it can all be combed straight back. The whitewalls looked funky on me.

 

[Shaul-Ike Cohen]

I thoroughly disgust this shmear in the hair. I don't wash my hair just to put something in so it looks and feels as if I hadn't washed my hair for a week.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Believe it or not, in the 19th century, dressings ("greasy stuff") for the hair were applied in order to mask the rancid odor of unwashed hair. Hair dressings had an aromatic scent.

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[tallyho]

wanna see some white walls?

Check out Bogart as Duke Mantee in Petrified Forest. You can file your nails on his tample hair!

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Some famous men of the 1920s had whitewalls: Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Charles Lindbergh.

Whitewall haircuts did exist in the '30s, but they weren't all that popular in America. (Germany, the Soviet Union, and much of Europe and Asia liked them, though!)

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[Maj.Nick Danger]

Believe it or not, in the 19th century, dressings ("greasy stuff") for the hair were applied in order to mask the rancid odor of unwashed hair. Hair dressings had an aromatic scent.

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Eeewwww,....

And didn't most of them go bald at a very early age?
I like Devo's solution to the whole hair care problem,...The Plastic Pomp.

 

[Wild Root]

The shaved side walls were mostly a youth style in the 20's -40's. Kids and young men wore hair like that mostly in the summer. Vlad is also correct, that style also was found mostly in the military.

I'd love to have hair like that but, mine is way to thin and wispy... when my hair is long on the sides, it looks like crap when it's wet... my hair is just too thin so, I have to clean up the sides so I can have a nice taper with longer hair on the top.

6'3", thin hair... cursed I be.

=WR=

 

[Lauren]

To cover up an unsightly growth maybe?

But seriously.. did guys fingerwave their own hair? They certainly didn't get a permanant wave...... did they??

 

[herringbonekid]

i'm fairly certain those are just natural waves.

i think wavy greased hair that is too perfectly neat (see previous page) can look somewhat effeminate if you're not careful.

 

[Wild Root]

It all depends on the man's type of hair. If you had hair that's thick and wavy, it would want to do that naturally. Now, remember that these guys are models and these styles are "Ideal" styles of the period. Now, the best reference I get is from old collage year books! You'll see stuff much like this and different variations. You'll see really wavy hair and men with curly hair! Men with hair like mine just combed it back or parted it on the side.

=WR=

 

[Shimmy Sally]

Those are fingerwaves, notice the ridge. It's a signature 30s thing.
I love that look, dang those men have THICK hair!

 

[Naama]

I still prefear the look of the shaved sides, or well, I love it actually!

Naama

 

[Mojave Jack]

I'd love to have hair like that but, mine is way to thin and wispy... when my hair is long on the sides, it looks like crap when it's wet... my hair is just too thin so, I have to clean up the sides so I can have a nice taper with longer hair on the top.

6'3", thin hair... cursed I be.

=WR=

I have the exact opposite problem. In fact, from this discussion I think I could pull of these 'dos with no problem. My hair is so thick that if I let it grow to any length at all it's like wearing a stocking cap. It's also coarse, and my barber once complained it is like trying to cut copper wire! On top of that it has that natural wave in it, and tends to do what it wants rather than what I want. It was a curse in high school, when it was totally uncool for your ears to show, because it would curl up long before it hit the bottom of my ears. I've found it to be much less hassle just to cut it closer.