Deathless Blondes and Permanent Waves: Women’s Hairstyles in Interwar Britain

The interwar era saw a boom in women’s hairdressing, with a great number of women in Britain, Europe and America opting to wear their hair short. This article explores the contexts of the evolution of these short hairstyles during the 1920s and 1930s in Britain and their representations in the period’s literature and film. It argues that the most popular interwar hairstyles held cultural meanings and associations that were more complex than the often-cited general notions of female independence and that decoding these meanings ought to involve an examination of the material and sensory properties of the hairstyles women wanted. The ‘makeover’ changed not only the woman’s look, but also the texture and ‘feel’ of her hair, and involved complex procedures and technological innovations that offered a range of sensory experiences, from the pleasure of having one’s hair washed to the horror of having it burned. The cultural mythology that grew around the trip to the hairdresser was inseparable from this wealth of sensory detail.