Short Hair and Historical Costuming
I have short hair. I’ve always had more-or-less short hair – the longest I’ve ever been able to grow it was just past my shoulders. I used to try to keep it as long as I could for playing vintage dress-up, but on a daily basis it wasn’t cute. My hair is fine, and thin, and really just wants to be short. (On the plus side, it takes a heat curl really well, so I can work some magic with a curling iron.)
The thing is, until recently I also had a wig/fake hair phobia. Things like fake hair and fake nails just really grossed me out and I wanted nothing to do with them. Which is a challenge when you want to participate in historical costuming, because not only does fake hair make it easier when you don’t have much of your own, but it’s also much easier to plop a pre-styled wig on your head than spend hours leading up to an event trying to do an elaborate, archaic hairdo on yourself.
I think (hope!) that I’ve gotten over my fear of fake hair, but I’ve also been having fun this past year experimenting with short historical hairstyles. I plan to do full outfit posts about all these costumes in the near future, but I thought it would be fun to look at just the hairstyles together. Apologies for the poor quality of many of the images – I don’t usually think my hair is anything special so I usually skip close-ups, so most of these photos are cropped down from full length images.
For Friday night at Costume College, I dressed in a French Empire style called a la victime, which was fashioned after the chopped-off hair that the aristocracy had to endure before going under the guillotine. The image on the left was my inspiration (I can’t find the original image source – if you can direct me to it, please let me know!). The center image is the excellent trial that my hairdresser did for me (the great/terrible thing about short hair is that you get to visit your hairdresser often, and mine has been helping me with some of these unusual styles). On the right is my final version from Costume College, which is probably too coiffed and attractive, and I realize that my hair is technically too LONG for this style! I don’t get to say that often.
This set of images is from a couple different nights at Camp Hollywood. Left and center are from “Cabaret Night”, so in a nod to Weimar Berlin I wore a man’s suit and fingerwaved my hair. The photo on the right is from the very next night, when my husband and I participated in a swing dance tribute performance for the 90th anniversary of the Venice Beach Clip. No way am I ever gonna have hair as long and thick as Genevieve Grazis, and no way am I ready for dancing with fake hair, but I can still do some good curl fluff and wear a big bow for the right effect. As a non-hair-person who has had to become somewhat adept with her hair, it blows my mind to look at this set of photos and see that the exact same haircut can produce such different looks.
Irene and Vernon Castle image source from The Whirl of Life (1915).
This final short hair look was what I wore to the Great War Gallop. This style was loosely inspired by Irene Castle, who led the bob trend by chopping off her hair in all the way back in 1914! Again, for this style, I just used a curling iron all over and sculpted my “curl fluff” into an appropriate shape/silhouette for the period.
Do you have short hair? How do you handle it when playing historical dress-up? Are there other short hair icons I should attempt to emulate?
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My hair is currently the longest it has been in my entire adult life. Prior to this, my hair was often short, usually bobbed, and I frequently debate hacking off all the length. But it is the costuming that keeps me from the scissors.
When my hair was short, I had no aversion to fake hair. In fact, I still use hair pieces often to create elaborate Deco-era styles and Medieval looks.
Personally, I think your short is an asset and I love how you’ve found a multitude of ways to make it work quite well with your costuming.
Thank you for the kind comments! I’m starting to recognize how wonderful fake hair can be. It has just taken me a while to work up to it. 😉
It’s great to see a historical costumer without long hair! I just started getting into historical costuming and my hair is short and I was frustrated with styling it. But, like you, I’m going to invest in some wigs so I can have the elaborate hairstyles that make me goo-goo eyed! In the meantime, I’ll take inspiration from you and embrace my short hair and make it work.
And don’t forget about hats and bonnets! They’re another way of concealing “modern” hair. I know gals even with long hair will often just pin on some faux bang/fringe curls to the front and add a hat.
I love these styles, they look amazing on you! I think they’d work for me, except I have no expertise with a curler. What kind(s) of curlers do you use?
Thank you so much! When my hair was a little longer, I used Hot Sticks to do my curls (they’re rubbery skinny little hot rollers), but currently my hair is too short even for that, so I just use a tiny curling iron. I use a light hold hairspray all over before curling, kind of as a “setting lotion”, and then once I have it all exactly how I want, I spray it down with Bed Head Hard Head hairspray. I can’t get more than one day out of a “set” with the Bed Head hairspray, but it is EXCELLENT at holding even in the most humid of conditions.
My hair is also fine and thin. I’ve been happiest wearing it in a short pixie style. I have been trying to grow it out, at least a little, in order to cover and blend it on the the front and sides of a wig. I’m more and more disgusted with it this length. More short hairstyles please. My sanity may depend on it!🤪
Ooh, I love a good pixie! My face is just a *little* too round for me to be happy with one though. I’ve only done wigs a couple times now, but I actually was happier with the look when I didn’t try to blend it than when I did. Maybe that’s something to try? Don’t give up hope!