Mop Tops

I had my hair tidied up yesterday and it looks much chic-er than the rather lanky, unkempt look I’d been sporting in the last few weeks until I managed to find the time for the trim. I’m told it’s sort of Demi Moore-ish (in the movie Ghost) so I’m quite pleased.

But if you look at it another way, it’s possibly also John, Paul, George and Ringo-ish. We went to the Beatles to Bowie exhibition today at the National Portrait Gallery and I felt a little bit self-conscious as I gazed at the photos of the Fab Four in their early days, while my own reflection from the glass frame gazed back at me. I’ve got a mop top, yeah, yeah, yeah…

It was fascinating to see their evolution over the 9 years or so of the 1960s, starting off with their mop top look and ending with lanky hair, beards and Yoko on the threshold of the 1970s. They were a band for only around a decade - and what a decade! - but they have come to dominate pop music in an iconic way even now almost fifty years after they first formed.

Bowie crops up from time to time over that decade, looking clean cut and non-descript for the most part. He only comes into his own in 1969 with Space Oddity and the uniquely odd persona of Ziggy Stardust. With him, the weird and wonderful 70s had begun!

The 70s were not my era - for hair or anything else. I couldn’t carry off long-ish hippy hair - it just looked oily and manky, draped down either side of my face. It was also they decade when I was a teenager. Ugh. I could do without re-living the pimples and moods…

But then I have to say, I’m glad I wasn’t a grown woman in the 60s - all the female pop icons of that time had impossibly feminine hair: Dusty Springfied with her bouffant beehive, some like Lulu with curved helmet like page boys, others with long Rapunzel tresses. Only Twiggy had short hair - and even shorter dresses!

I love my short mop top hair - so, hurray for the modern day and Demi Moore who made it OK for us girls to look like the Beatles!

Photo: of Demi Moore from hairfinder.com, with thanks
Photo: of The Beatles from the exhibition website, with thanks