Shorn

Hair style is the final tip-off whether or not a woman really knows herself.
~ Hubert de Givenchy, Vogue, July 1985

***

Me (last night) : I was thinking... I know you're not going to believe this [dramatic pause]. I'm bored.
Kat (smiling knowingly) : I was wondering when that was going to happen. So what do you want to do?
Me : I have no idea. You tell me. Just don't make me look like a boy.

***

For the first time in my life (that I can remember), I had finally cultivated what I inwardly called my Signature Style. That means I've had the same haircut (my Louise Brooks) for almost two years. That's the longest I've ever had my hair one way and I finally felt happy that I had found something that really worked for me.

I had embraced my Inner Flapper and it felt good.


Every four weeks or so: Same cut, same color.
Whenever I can manage to make it look the way it's supposed to, I get lots of nice compliments.

***

The haircut made me feel kind of settled, like those older ladies who have their "look" down: their signature fragrance, their classic red lipstick, their pearls. You know, kind of like making yourself your own icon.

Until last night, when I decided that as much as I loved being my own icon--I was super bored. The boredom was casting a little grey pall over me (or supplementing the one I already have from my recent overdosing on political brouhaha) and that was making everything else seem a bit blah, too.

Hair can do that to you.

***

So, because Kat is a genius and knows what to do when you don't even know yourself, she has turned my Inner Flapper into my Inner Gamine.

Shorter, darker and sassier. And with asymetrical bangs so I can do an Audrey Hepburn sweep to the side, a la Roman Holiday. Hey! Audrey cut off all her hair in that movie...maybe that is the subconscious leap right there. Which means that I should be bumping into a Gregory Peck look-alike any moment now!


Woo hoo! This haircut is getting better all the time!

***

When I first thought about sharing my new do with you, I thought I would try to make this into a quasi-educational/philosophical post and do some research into the symbolism of hair and maybe look at some ancient myths and fairy tales, like Rapunzel, where hair is a metaphor of the psyche, and then that just didn't really go anywhere.

I think it's just a haircut. There doesn't always have to be a hidden, deeper meaning, does there?

And I realized that maybe I just wanted to say that Tangobaby's got a new look and now things aren't as blah as they were yesterday.

Sometimes hair will do that to you.

***

ps. If you ever want to read a great book about flappers and the Jazz Age, pick up a copy of Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern by Joshua Zeitz

And my favorite book about Louise Brooks, the book that lives on my nightstand, is Louise Brooks: Lulu Forever by Peter Cowie.

Very cool flapper photo from atticfullofclutter. The other one I swiped from wikipedia.