The 1980’s saw a dramatic upswing in truly eccentric hair styles. Maybe America was looking to get a little crazy with their coif after the relative mundaneness of sixties and seventies hairstyles like the shellacked flip and the hippie iron-straight look. As any book or movie will tell you, the 80’s were all about excess, and that certainly applied to the hairstyles.
The watchword for hair in the 1980s was BIG. Big hair was certainly not a new concept in the 1980s. In fact, some of history’s biggest hairstyles ever hail from the royal courts of the 17th century. But the 80’s ushered in a new era of inventiveness with more diversity and far more options than had ever existed before.
Both men and women sported big hair, and it sometimes seemed like there was a competition to see who could come up with the most elaborate ‘do. The 80’s was the decade of the hair band, the crimping iron, and the teasing comb.
Some of the most popular hairstyles for women were: the side ponytail, popular with girls of all ages and usually adorned with the rubber band that had two glass marbles on either end. And then there was the fully blown-out mane held back by a headband, bangs teased into a cloud. Hair was ratted until it could stand up on its own without even the benefit of hairspray, which was usually applied afterward with the hair flipped over. An entire head of crimped locks, bangs included, was another popular way to go.
The asymmetrical haircut was popularized for the first time in history in the 1980’s. Lots of new wave girls (and guys) sported long locks on one side and a shaved head on the other side, or the long-in-front and short-in-back reverse mullet. Girls emulated their favorite pop stars of the decade – platinum blond curls, teased sky high and held in place by black lace bows for the Madonna fans. Fans of darker pop like Siouxie Sioux and The Cure went for the hairspray and the black dye to create a black mop that hung in their eyes. Fans of the eccentric Cyndi Lauper reached for the bright orange dye and curled their bangs.
People’s favorite bands inspired some truly out-there hairstyles. One extra crazy hairstyle, the truly inexplicable Flock of Seagulls hair, featured two side “wings” with a lock of longer hair hanging down in the eyes and was mostly popular with men. New wave boys emulated the black mops of such artists as The Cure’s Robert Smith and Ric Ocasek of The Cars. Fans of heavy metal bands, also called “hair metal,” like Guns n’ Roses, Kiss, and White Snake, strove to make their manes as massive as their idols. Guys back then used just as much hairspray as their girlfriends to achieve the look they wanted.
The 80’s were a loud and interesting decade in politics, fashion, and of course, hairstyles. Interestingly, men paid more attention to their hair in the 80’s than they did for most of the 90’s. In fact, it might be said that men didn’t pay that much attention to their hair again until the dawn of the new century, when the “metrosexual” entered the nation’s consciousness.
