The bob haircut was once a shocking act of female independence
When young women queued outside barbers in the early 1920s to lose hair they had grown for years, older onlookers saw rebellion. A Polish stylist credited with making the short bob fashionable in 1909 claimed Joan of Arc as his muse. By the mid-1920s it was the Western world's dominant female hairstyle.
A classic bob is cut straight around the head at roughly jaw level, never past the shoulders, often with a fringe and leaving the nape bare. Western women had generally worn long hair, though a few performers went short early; the French actress Polaire adopted cropped dark hair in the early 1890s. Respectability came with the First World War, when long hair proved a nuisance for girls doing war work.
Antoni Cierplikowski, known as Antoine de Paris and often called the first celebrity hairdresser, launched a short bob in 1909 and later the shingle cut, tapered tight at the back. His clientele ran from Coco Chanel to Greta Garbo. In America the dancer Irene Castle is said to have popularised her Castle bob in 1915, although the illustrator Clara Tice was the first public figure there to wear one. Screen stars including Louise Brooks and Colleen Moore spread it among flappers.
Traditional hairdressers, trained to curl and pin long tresses, were slow to adapt, which is why barbers found lines of women at their doors. Fashion helped too: the snug cloche hats of the decade would not sit over long hair. Beyond the West, women rejecting traditional roles took up the cut as a badge of modernity. By the 1930s hair was lengthening again and the crisp lines faded.
Vidal Sassoon revived the shape in the mid-1960s in a simpler, sharper form, just as the Beatles' mop top arrived for men. Later variants include the inverted or graduated bob with stacked layers at the back, and the A-line, longer at the front. When Victoria Beckham adopted an A-line cut in the mid-2000s, clients began requesting the Pob, blending her Posh nickname with the style.
Source: Bob cut
