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VINTAGRAPH • WPA • WWII • YOU MEAN A WOMAN CAN OPEN IT?

The Decade of Hair

We tend to think of the 1960s as the dawn of hair, which it was, but the 70s is when it went mainstream. Me and my brother on Sunday November 4, 1973. It was also the decade of alternative pants, you'll notice. Got my trusty camera bag slung on my shoulder. 35mm Kodachrome. View Big Hair.

We tend to think of the 1960s as the dawn of hair, which it was, but the 70s is when it went mainstream. Me and my brother on Sunday November 4, 1973. It was also the decade of alternative pants, you'll notice. Got my trusty camera bag slung on my shoulder. 35mm Kodachrome. View Big Hair.

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Hair for days

Long hair was more trouble, absolutely, but I stayed with it for awhile. When I arrived in Berkeley in 1969 (amid clouds of tear gas), I soon found work in a restaurant run by a young Chinese- and Italian-American couple who had run the upstairs food concession for the Grateful Dead's concerts in the old Fillmore. They each had calf-length hair, his straight and blue-black, hers wavy and chestnut, and they were generally adjudged to be gorgeous. But they cheerfully admitted that the price of all that radical chic was at least two full nights a week devoted to keeping their hair pretty. And, by the way, sorry: I didn't intend to twit Tt and his brother for being "too formally dressed." It was a careless comparison to the ambient grunge looks around me back then. I might better have said that their sartorial choices looked like an occasion, and Sunday was one of those for many.

So where are ...

The tterrace pics from, say, the mid-Sixties to 1970? Or were you off in a commune somewhere stringing beads.

Just a year later...

Long hair was too much trouble. The gal in the center, my brother's wife, was at the controls of my camera for the 1974 pic, BTW. As for being "formally dressed" in that one, it's Sunday. We weren't going to church, but that's what you did.

Filthy hippies!

It's amazing to me that the Hair Wars continue unabated today with the same visceral anger as 40 years ago. Tterrace and his brother look pretty cool to me, if a little too formally dressed. By 1970 at Berkeley, my hair was usually shoulder length or a little longer, just long enough to pass muster in public, with sideburns down to my jawline. One of my professors, a Bavarian in his sixties, tartly observed that I looked like a Polish rabbinical student. And every summer I went home to work in a wholesale lumber yard, and had to cut it back to the earlobes, and still got ragged on by my mom and scowled at by half the "adults" in San Diego. But today's revival of long hair by Emo kids ("sad pathetic trash"?! -- Jeez, get a grip!) ain't nothing so rad as back then. And most of the shorter hair on young men is usually so gooped-up with gels and mousses that to an old guy like me it looks like lard hair. But to those who can't stand long hair on young men today, be patient. They'll lose most of it soon enough, just as I and almost all of my formerly filthy long-haired friends did.

Hairy and hairier

About the only thing worth missing about the '70s, fashionwise and perhaps otherwise, is long hair on men. I've always loved it.

Alas, the era of the mullet and hair metal put an end to all those lovely, natural long locks, and the only great long hair one sees anymore is on bikers and the odd middle-aged country star. Personally, I don't consider that those doe-eyed emo youths have long hair at all, but I grew up in an altogether hairier time.

Therefore I am old enough to remember the hoo-ha over long hair on men in the '60s, and I don't recall that "unsanitary" was a major argument, even amid all that hysteria. I mean, good heavens, dude, get a grip. I bet you think men should wax their chests, too (shudder).

(And tterrace, you and your brother were a couple of cuties.)

Ruminations on Hair

I have a short back and sides at the moment, one that wouldn't be out of place in many of the photos on this site. But- I think I'm going to grow it out again so that germophobes and other miscreants will never again feel safe in their beds. Long hair is fine. Short hair is fine. Medium hair is arguably finest. The trick is to have it too short during a long phase (think punks and New Wave in the 70s) or too long in a short phase (beatniks and grungers) and then you'll never go wrong and have barrels of fun.

That being said, this is a great picture, I've really enjoyed watching the two brothers grow up and change.

On Hair, Cont...

Most of the youth I see today would disagree...especially those of a more ethnic descent (I won't say more, because it doesn't need to be said). Hair is out, on everything but emo white kids, and they look like sad pathetic trash. Short hair reigns, almost as if the 50's have returned. Thanks be to God!

Stylin'

Lookin' good! I love this photo.

Re: On Hair...

I wonder if the poster of "On Hair" has seen today's youth...

"Long hair is disgusting"

We haven't all "come to our senses," you hysterical germophobe. I for one am thoroughly tired of the unattractive cliche of head shaving. Also goatees and tattoos, but I'll save that for another thread.

On Hair

Thank God we've all come to our senses, finally. Long hair is disgusting and unsanitary, and one thing positive about modern style is the return of head shaving and short hair on both sexes. Hopefully it will stay this way. At the very least, however, I think 1970's style has gone the way of 1870's style: never to be repeated.

Niiice

Ooh, you looked like Richard Chamberlain, but better!

Who would've thought?

You and your brother are quite the lookers! Oh why can't I be about 35 years older?

I agree...

I was also captivated by this image...I love it.

The Pants !

Gotta love the plaid. Reminds me of my dad's red pair. He has promised to will them to me.

Yowza!

You two turned out to be a couple of hottie pitotties! Cute!

I had a pair of those "styish" lovely platforms when I was a 14 yr old girl and promptly tore some ligs in my right calf ... When my 14 yr old wanted a pair, the answer was, "Oh~look at those lovely flats.." Thank goodness she's 5'10".

Great pic!

Platforms

I trust these "steppers" have those godawful high-heel shoes on! I had a pair when I was in college back then--fell down when I first wore them and tossed them into the closet. I hate to look at photos of my time in 1960's...and cannot understand why I ever thought I looked "hip"!

Renaissance painting

I don't know if you're aware of it, but this photograph is one of the finest I've ever seen, from amateurs as well as professional photographers. The long lens, out of focus background, your attentive gaze towards some mysterious event somewhere to the the right, all this gives a kind of surrealistic feeling to the picture. And if you isolate a close up of yourself, you'll see it's almost like an Italian Renaissance portrait in oil.

Sharp.

Love the chestnut corduroy blazer -- perfect.

Mmmmm....

And right above "meat market" too -- interesting...

Please tell me Bro became a professor.

Because if he did not go on to become a professor with elbow patches, a pipe, and student assistants who did all his work, he missed his calling! Love the photo, love the HAIR, and am envious of that camera bag. (Oh, and at least you two had natural highlights & body; those poor fellas on the album cover have limp, lifeless pelts on their noggins.)

Absolutely awesome!

It's like a JC Penney ad!

Just wanted to say

I have all your albums!

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