The result of a clever linguistic game in which a word becomes a sound, the onomatopoeic name for the most radical and microscopic haircut that exists is today a constant among the trends that animate the front of the hair. From the runways to the stars, short hair has evolved over the years to become a bold and edgy style, often highlighted by equally vibrant colors. hard core, for example, platinum blonde, pastel pink or electric blue. A landing point, or perhaps just another of the many evolutions that the shaved haircut has undergone throughout history, ingrained in society since the days of Ancient Rome. Born as a men’s haircut synonymous with cleanliness, order and conformity, the short haircut evolved in the 19th century into a powerful political and ideological tool of first abolition, then re-appropriation, emancipation and solidarity.
How well the heroine Demi Moore tells in the cult film Private Jane, the fashionable haircut has proven itself to be an excellent military haircut. Very short, practical and hygienic, it soon established itself in a number of countries such as the USA, France, Russia and the UK as a strict rule to be followed.
With the advent of Nazism and the spread of concentration camps, shaved hair soon became one of the most powerful weapons of humiliation and abolition of the identity of prisoners, men and women, without any gender distinction.
In the years following World War II, the shaved haircut remained firmly tied to Nazi symbolism, so much so that it gave birth to the skinhead aesthetic created by the Mods, a youth subculture that emerged in London in the late 1950s. and is marked by parka jackets, expensive Italian clothing, motorcycles and soul music. However, the violent and anti-Semitic background of the cut only re-emerged around 1970, when the aesthetic took two different paths: one more dandy and eccentric, the other masculine and with a strong reference to the military sphere, which led to real-life neo-Nazi demonstrations of its own.
The years of great cultural ferment, marked by the nonconformist revolutions carried out in the United States and Europe by the “flower children”, “sixty-eighth” and feminist movements, between 1960 and the end of 1970 contributed to a succession of great changes also in terms of aesthetics, until it led to disorders never previously explored in the 1980s. It was during this decade that the boundaries between masculine and feminine blurred in favor of fluid experimentation, men experimenting with makeup and tight-fitting clothing, women asserting their strength and their freedom by shaving off their hair and challenging the aesthetic canons of the time. Like Grace Jones, the model who was the first to openly question gender differences, making fluidity her strength.
From this point on, the short haircut established itself as a symbol of female empowerment, a form of non-verbal combat with which to challenge a macho and homophobic society whose idea of beauty and femininity was associated exclusively with long and voluminous hair. Thus, from the 1980s to the present day, the shaved haircut worn by women has evolved from an imposition, a stigma associated with madness, punishment and shame, to a personal choice through which to express one’s individuality.
From Sinéad O’Connor, the activist and singer who died in June, who made her boyish style an ineradicable part of her figure, to Skin by Skunk Anensie, to Cara Delevingne, Natalie Portman, Britney Spears, Kristen Stewart, the trendy haircut he confirmed himself in its versatility and expressive power.
Today, the unusual haircut par excellence, the fashionable haircut, thanks to the evolution that has taken place throughout history, can be many things, such as a symbol of struggle and rebellion, religious devotion or, simply – and not at all obvious – a choice of style. .