Style | 06/16/2009 10:14 am
Bad Hair: A Photo Tribute to the Worst Hairstyles of the 1970s
Photo Essay
Bad Hair takes you on a hair-raising journey through the worst hairstyles of the 1970s. The coffee-table book, published in 2002, by Bloomsbury USA, is a compilation of photographs taken from hairdresser books found in salons and barber shops. While most of these hairstyles have had their day — and so has the book (sad to say Bad Hair is no longer in print), wowOwow was lucky enough to get these images from the publisher to share with you.
Bad Hair, collected by James Innes-Smith and Henrietta Webb, goes out to all those people of yesteryear — who weren’t afraid to wear bouffants, mullets, beehives, rakes, asymmetrical bobs and Flock-of-Seagulls.
Most of the images from the book had no accompanying text or captions, but this is definitely a case where a picture is worth 1,000 words (or 1,000 gasps!). And for fun and laughs, we include a number to the right of each photograph and want you to tell us below your caption suggestions. We’ll re-publish the slideshow and feature your most creative submissions once we’ve received them.
Have a bad hair photograph? Send it our way along with a short story behind it at submit@wowOwow.com for consideration in a future slideshow.
Bad Hair, collected by James Innes-Smith and Henrietta Webb, goes out to all those people of yesteryear — who weren’t afraid to wear bouffants, mullets, beehives, rakes, asymmetrical bobs and Flock-of-Seagulls.
Most of the images from the book had no accompanying text or captions, but this is definitely a case where a picture is worth 1,000 words (or 1,000 gasps!). And for fun and laughs, we include a number to the right of each photograph and want you to tell us below your caption suggestions. We’ll re-publish the slideshow and feature your most creative submissions once we’ve received them.
Have a bad hair photograph? Send it our way along with a short story behind it at submit@wowOwow.com for consideration in a future slideshow.
Read more about: 1970, Beauty, Books, Culture, Entertainment, Fashion, hair, Hairstyles, Lifestyle, Style
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38 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
Some of these didn’t seem all that bad to me, especially the men’s styles. Some of the facial hair was pretty bad, though. Some of them look like those crazy coifs you see in hairstyle books that no one actually wears in real life anyway. Some were truly bad.
I wonder if, in 30 years, we will see some of the younger guys of today wearing those combovers in a similar book. Who knew grandpa was ahead of his time?
Bad yes, but not near as bad as the Grunge look that seemed to be lice ridden, nor as bad as the ‘bed head" look today, or the run away scissors look that the ladies seem to favor in La la land…I remember thinking I was adorable with my 70’s poof thank you!
Lets take a look at each decade’s hair styles, a walk down memory lane..I love it!
The current hairstyles are the biggest mish-mash I’ve ever seen. Anything goes. And I guess that’s good.
I thought the 50’s and 60’s were the worst, too. But I’ve changed my mind.
Of course, 30-40 years from now they’ll be saying that the styles of today were horrible.
What goes around, comes around.
Andrea, you are SO right! As I often tell me students, one day your kids will find your high school and college yearbooks, and then you will find them rolling around on the floor, laughing hysterically at the way YOU looked. Hehhehheh. Yes, life is full of these little karmic moments.
I have to say that I have a couple of pictures of my own hair peccadilloes from the late ‘60’s that are - well, hair-raising. Platinum blonde, frizzed out, with Twiggy eyelashes painted on and lipstick in a lovely shade of oxblood-red. Oh, yeah. I thought I was da bomb, all right. But when you’re young and the world is your oyster (or you think it is, anyway) you can get away with a lot. I believe you can also get away with a lot when you get old - I’m a "hair" away from reverting to those what-the-hey days, and started the process last year by dyeing my hair red. It has been a fun year trying to live up to the red-head stereotype!
I agree with Deena about some of the men’s hairstyles not being so bad.
However, I’m sure I saw a couple of the women’s "dos" worn by alien females on the original "Star Trek".
The only style I liked was number 4 the guy with the red hair. What about the Afro, on white people it looked rediculus. I speak from experience, I got one just before leaving for bood-camp thinking it would be to advantage. NOT. I was in the Navy and we had to wear a hat nicknamed "PissCutter" (no idea where the name came from), I am a natural red head and when I put that hat on over my Afro I looked like BOZO the clown, no joke,lol
Oh, you made me laugh! The Army also had that cap - the proper term is "garrison cap" but the Army called it a "C-cap." I will leave you to imagine what "C" stood for - it’s not nice! Both that and "piss cutter" come from anatomical resemblances that some (crude) people thought they could see there.
Switching to the Army beret did not help with appearance, though - women with short curly hair still suffer from the Bozo Effect!