Posts Tagged ‘Hair’
“The method preferred by most balding men for making themselves look silly is called the comb over”*…
Balding has been the constant scourge of man since the beginning of time, and for millennia, our best solution was the comb-over. Brian VanHooker tells the story of how its once-ubiquitous popularity thinned, receded, and then got pushed to the side…
For decades now, having a comb-over to cover one’s baldness has been generally seen as unacceptable. There may be exceptions, but men with prominent, noticeable comb-overs are often regarded as desperate — instead of aging gracefully, they’re seen as hopelessly clinging to a time when they had a full head of hair. Worst of all, for people with advanced hair loss, the comb-over is entirely ineffective. Instead of disguising a man’s baldness, it only accentuates it, thus laying bare their lack of hair and, even worse, their insecurity.
This wasn’t always the case. For at least a couple thousand years, comb-overs were perfectly acceptable and worn by the most powerful men in the world. It was only during the latter half of the 20th century that it all came crashing (flopping?) down…
From Julius Caesar to Donald Trump, a tonsorial trip through time: “The Rise, Flop, and Fall of the Comb-Over,” from @TrivialHistory in @WeAreMel.
* Dave Barry
###
As we resist the urge, we might send scandalous birthday greetings to Giacomo Casanova; he was born on this date in 1725. A Venetian adventurer and author, he is best remembered– as a product both of his memoir and of other contemporary accounts– as a libertine, a womanizer who carried on complicated and elaborate affairs with numerous women.
At the same time, he associated with European royalty, popes, and cardinals, along with intellectual and artistic figures like Voltaire, Goethe, and Mozart. His memoir (written toward the end of his life, while he served as librarian to Count Waldstein) is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century.
Casanova preferred a wig to a comb-over.
“Good design doesn’t date. Bad design does.”*…
Where do patterns come from? While some might be computer-generated using the latest in image scanning and digital printing technologies, many more can be sourced to the Design Library—the world’s largest collection of patterns.
Located about 75 minutes from Manhattan in the Hudson Valley village of Wappingers Falls, the Design Library holds more than 7 million different documentary fabrics, original paintings, wallpapers, embroideries, and yarn dyes inside a huge, 12,000-square foot converted fabric mill. Designers hailing from couture fashion brands, as well as those from national chains and big-box stores, all travel to the library to find historical material to use, adapt, and remix in service of their own creative vision.
“The idea here is to get [the patterns] back out into the world and let the world see them recreated, even duplicated,” says Peter Koepke, the owner of the Design Library…
Browse further at “Inside The World’s Largest Pattern Library.”
* Paul Rand
###
As we agree with Charles Eames that “the details aren’t the details, they make the design,” we might recall that it was on this date in 1906 that Karl Ludwig Nessler (who changed his name for commercial purposes to “Nestle”), demonstrated the first “permanent wave” for hair in his beauty salon in Oxford Street, London, to an invited audience of hair stylists. The hair was soaked with an alkaline solution and rolled on metal rods which were then heated strongly.
This initial method had the disadvantages of being expensive, very lengthy (about 5 hours) and required a cumbersome machine beneath which the client was obliged to wear a dozen brass curlers, each weighing 1-3/4 lb.
But Nessler/Nestle continuously improved his process. With the outbreak of WW I, he moved to the United States and opened salons in New York, Chicago, Detroit, Palm Beach and Philadelphia, ultimately employing 500.
The pursuit of the hirsute…
From the doers…
…to the done…
… it’s all at The Hair Hall of Fame.
As we let it all go to our heads, we might wish a mystically happy birthday to mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, alchemist/occultist, navigator, and champion of English expansionism John Dee; he was born on this date in 1527. Widely regarded as the smartest man and/or most powerful magician in the Europe of his time, Dee was an intimate advisor to Queen Elizabeth I and her closest ministers. But Dee, a student of Copernicus and a friend of Tycho Brahe, was also a serious scholar (his library was the largest in England, perhaps in Europe) and one of the most learned men of his day– a central figure in the development of modern science… and underneath that cap, he had a killer head of hair.
Life imitates art far more than art imitates life*…
It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.
– Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
Santino Fontana and David Furr, stars of the Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest, reading transcripts from The Jersey Shore.
[via Playbill; TotH to Stephen Fry]
* “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Lying (1889)
As we remember that to lose one parent “may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose both looks like carelessness,” we might recall that it was on this date in 1968 that Hair ( book by Gerome Ragni and James Rado, music by Galt MacDermot) premiered on Broadway. Though it had done well with audiences in an earlier six-week run at the Public Theater, Hair was considered a long-shot on the Great White Way, and opened to mixed reviews. But it charmed audiences (and spawned a million-selling original cast recording and a #1 song, “Aquarius,” for the Fifth Dimension). Looking back forty years later, critic Charles Isherwood wrote in the New York Times, “For darker, knottier and more richly textured sonic experiences of the times, you turn to the Doors or Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell or Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin. Or all of them. For an escapist dose of the sweet sound of youth brimming with hope that the world is going to change tomorrow, you listen to Hair and let the sunshine in.”
Fabulous!…
Ben Brown had one of those days… one of those days on which his hair was just so fabulous that he had to share. And having shared, realized that he could bring that satisfaction to the masses… So was born Must Share Hair, on which the tonsorially-talented can trumpet their triumphs; e.g.,
As Ben says, his goal is:
To document and promote real people with real hair for the amusement and inspiration of the whole world!
Is your hair great? Is your hair ridiculous? Snap a photo and email it to us at: mustsharehair@tumblr.com or submit online
As we wipe our combs, we might celebrate the anniversary of Henry Perky’s patent on shredded wheat — this date in 1893…
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://i0.wp.com/img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?w=700)
You must be logged in to post a comment.