Vintage hats and hairstyles that shaped the decades

Lipstick and Curls are so often asked to create a hairstyle to suit a hat piece. Most ladies taking their inspiration from the early 30’s and 40’s styling would include a hat in their outfit and therefore most styles from that period would be styled to suit such a piece.

Women would therefore wear their hair bunched at the nape of the neck with the top of the style flat. Ladies would roll, curl or plait the hair to add more interest to style; this would however remain very low at the back of the neck as not to interrupt the positioning of the headpiece. For someone with a shorter style the curls would be brushed down straight at the back again forming a shape only around the nape of the neck, this is an iconic 40’s style that would most definitely have been fashioned from the women’s desire to include a hat within her outfit.

The 1920’s fashion for hats was tight fitting and hugged the head and hairstyle almost like a swimming cap. Hairstyles needed to be in keeping for such a hat therefore women would use a gel to sculpted the hair flat and neat to the head and perhaps only giving shape and definition to the front forehead and side of the head. Kiss curls and finger waves were popular around this time.

A popular hat of the 1930’s would slope forward onto the face almost covering the eyes sometimes the hat was at a slight angle revealing more of one side of the hairstyle giving more of the hairstyle on show. Women would experiment with very style curls and waves as this was now very much visible and a popular style from this was the marcel wave.  

Typically in the 1940’s the hats designed on this decade were designed to sit on the back of the head. Women therefore wore their hair slightly longer so curls were visible at the back of the hat and much more creativity was given to the front. It was very fashionable now in the 40’s to roll the hair at the front and give height to the front section of the hairstyle. A very popular style of this time that works fabulously with hats is the Victory Roll.

Hats in the 1950’s became much bigger and a typical 1950’s hat would sit right on the top of the head almost like a plate! The hat didn’t hug the face at any point really so the hair was very sculpted and with lots of volume throughout. 

The 1960’s had a lot of change and the span of the decade saw a great deal of fashions and trends. Hats were still very popular however women were experimenting with their image more and hair was more sculpted in its style. Women experimented with more masculine hats popular previously only with the male population such as caps and trilby hats. A notable hair accessory of this time was the head band/ Alice band.  A smaller hair adornment, giving more space for height at the back of the head. A popular style of the decade was the beehive.

The 1970’s saw the introduction of much longer styles. Still the hats were in keeping therefore much larger and floppier in shape. The hairstyle would still be noticed under the hat yet the style was loose and soft, long barrel curls looked great under such a hat. 

Amanda x

Lipstick & Curls