Vintage Hair Part 1 – The Haircut

There’s nothing like vintage hair to complete the look of a cute and sexy vintage dress. I’ve always been really low-maintenance with my hair. It’s really fine and doesn’t like to cooperate. As far as vintage hair goes I actually really love the 1930s short bob with finger waves look, but I refuse to get a haircut that short, so I’m learning a lot lately about styles from the 40s and 50s. I’d like to pass on what I’m learning to you.
There are three basic elements to the 40s and 50s style; the haircut, curls, and rolls. These go from easiest to hardest respectively. In this article I’m going to focus on Step 1, the cut, which is the easiest since the stylist would be doing that for you.
Since there was a war going on, 1940s hair tended to be short, rarely past the shoulders. Women showed their support by keeping their hair off the collar as women working jobs in the service. THE haircut of the 1940s was the middy, and most modern haircuts are based from it. This is basically just a cut with layers, a requirement for showing off vintage and rockabilly curls, and a true 40s middy comes in 3 lengths, the longest of which is only 6 inches at its longest point. Rita Hayworth was an exception with a 10 inch version. This looks like rocker hair when worn straight, but it’s the very best cut for curling up into adorable vintage styles. The middy was invented for the versatility required for a number of 1940s hairstyles.
Here are a couple videos by Lisa Freemont Street about the middy and how to style it. She has the very best videos about vintage hair, and has taught me virtually everything I know about how to achieve it. You don’t need to have this exact haircut of course, anything with layers will do. But it’s always valuable to know where the roots (ahem) of a style come from. Enjoy the videos!