Welcome Back To The Pixie Revolution,
This post and topic has been long overdue.
Even as a kid growing up in the 80's I was drawn to blonde's, and women with short hair.
The 80's seemed to usher in many short styles that where in direct contrast to the long shaggy styles
of the 70's. Sure there was big teased out hair, or as we on the Northern part of East Coast would call it "Mall Hair" back in the 80's.
But the 80's seemed to bring in alot of short styles for women. From blunt bobs, to short razored looking styles,( Joan Jett, Oliva Newton John, Sheena Easton; to just about every tv sitcom mom in the 80's) to even mohawks and side buzzed looks ( see Cyndi Lauper)
One of my first childhood crushes was Mallory from Family Ties. By season 3 she had a cute collar length bob, but I can remember clearly when she returned for Season 4 she debuted a short gelled back, layered short cut very simular to Madonna's cut around the same time. This was about 1985-86
and Mallory aka Justine Bateman was the first in many of the crushes I've had on short haired women.
Below: Season 4 of Family Ties the debut of Mallory's short Madonna like cut
While the 80's saw a resurgance of short styles for women, it was the early 90's that took it to a whole
other level.
Within the first year of the 90's, a new short style began to emerge that seemed to be come very popular very quickly. It had pixie elements, yet had a bowl and wedge element too.
I'm pretty sure I know who had it first and that person beat all of them by about 3 years and that is none other then Pheobe Cates who debuted the look in 1987 in the little known but cult classic movie Date With An Angel, but within the year of 1990, Demi Moore, Josie Bissett and Chynna Phillips of Wilson Phillips all had the same cut and seemed to popularize it and make it go main stream.
Below a collection of photo's of the women who wore this great style
Pheobe Cates
Josie Bissett
By 1991, Lecy Goranson who played Becky #1 of the tv show Roseanne debuted a bowl/bob buzzed nape cut as well. Which is another cut I instantly liked and immediately began to have a crush on Becky. I had thought Becky was cute before, but once she had the bobbed haircut with that buzzed nape she went from cute for me to hot. I also remember while I was in 10th grade a russian girl who was new to the U.S and our school came in one day sporting Becky's buzzed nape bob cut. She even looked like Becky. I had the pleasure of being in the same home room and sat several seats away and got to stare at her incredible haircut, I also remember we lived a block away and on several occasions walked home chatting.
I never got the courage to ask her out, but I always look foundly on The Becky Cut
While the 80's introduced me to short haired women, it was the early 90's that introduced my young adolescent mind to women with buzzed napes, and my love and fascination has never ceased.
I cant remember who I saw first with a buzzed nape with a bowlish shelf line and the longer eye grazing bangs, but I know how I felt when I saw it.
I immediately began to fanatise about other female celebrites hoping they would get this cut.
I would also imagine girls in my high school and classes with this cut.
I would draw artwork and comic book female characters and give them this haircut.
Something about the longer neatly combed hair almost all one length, and then a drastic length change of a buzzed nape and an exposed neck that made me find it very attractive.
It was also in my opinion a precursor for my future love of angled bob's with buzzed napes.
I only can find it fitting then that I feature this style and the women who wore this cut as pioneer's of the 90's pixie cut and who in my opinion set the stage for buzzed napes a decade later. I can only hope that this look will come back in some new incarnation in the near future. Until then to steal a line from Wilson Phillips, I guess I just have to "Hold on for one more day"
Until next time..
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