Her brows brushed with a wide fringe, with the hair on the nape of her neck left feathery and unstructured – creating a classic 70's look – she steps out into the street. Yes, indeed, women's seventies hairstyles have come back with a bang – at its androgynous best. Breaking loose from the coiffured hairdos of the fifties and sixties.
If you think about the 1970's hairstyles, the one name that springs to mind is Farrah Fawcett Major. She was the one who made the feathered look a style statement, which has caught on again today with the chic and the happening crowd. The feathered look is in fact quite an easy hairdo to achieve. All you need to do is simply blow dry the hair in an under and up motion to create more movement, body and volume, and then continue blow-drying the fair around the face, in an out and up motion to create that soft feathered effect.
The seventies was the hippies' era, hence anything went as far as hairstyling was concerned. Basically, it also meant long and wildly flowing hair that the flower children famously flaunted. Hairstyles that looked as natural as possible was what was in, so no more poodle hair, pompadour, and bouffant.
Hair fashions of the seventies were, in fact, pretty cool, or ‘hep', as was the word used in those days. With the blow drier being invented in the 1970's, in terms of hairdos it became quite a revolutionary thing. No more pin up hairdos, no more rolls, and most of all no more going to bed with curlers. With the blow drier, women could blow their long locks any which way they wanted to create that carefree look. Long and straight were the catchwords in the seventies hairstyles.
In fact, women in the 70's would go to great lengths to create that long and straight look. Since they did not have straightening irons, women would actually use a regular iron to straighten out their hair. They would take turns to iron each other's hair, little by little, taking care not to singe the hair.
But, it wasn't only the wind-blown straight style that was in, in the seventies hairstyles. The glam quotient also featured in a big way. Think Abba, think Charlie's Angels. Following straight from the sixties looks, there was an irreverent attitude and an inclination towards freedom of expression, which resulted in some quite avant-garde looks along with daring experimentation with haircuts and coloring. This was achieved by creating hair that was shiny, styled, and decked up with headbands. The plaits of the sixties were carried over, but were interlaced into fringes and were added subtly into sleek, long hairstyles. Which is not to say that women did not go short in the seventies. Short hairstyles in the 70's included choppy layers, bangs, bob, and hair with plenty of definition.
There were plenty of hairstyles that were famous in the seventies, one of them being the Afro. This was a period in which black pride and power came to the fore and made itself felt in the world of fashion, reinforcing the fact that beauty comes in all forms and shapes. The tightly coiled hair that black women hitherto had was grown out to create those huge Afro hairdos that became such a rage in the seventies.
The seventies were also famous for being the disco era – remember the Bee Gees crooning ‘Night Fever' to John Travolta's hip-twitching disco moves? – with bell-bottoms, elephant pants, huge belt buckles, and patches being the dressing style, with the ubiquitous hairstyle to go with all that – the disco wedge cut.
Another super-hep hairstyle of the seventies was the Shag, which is coming back today in a big way, albeit in updated versions of it, still, unmistakably the Shag. The hair is cut in irregular layers, to create a shaggy look.
The teenyboppers of the seventies also went in, in a big way, for the pageboy haircut. This hairstyle was created by curling the hair on the back inwards, keeping the length up to the neck, and doing the same on the bangs and the hair at the sides, curling all the hair inwards in order to frame the face. The bangs were fluffed up to give a finishing touch.
