Vintage Hair Styles for Men – a decadent Byronesque Coiffure!
It seems hair articles and images about vintage hairstyles cater almost exclusively to women. Indeed, for time periods before the 1950’s, there are scant resources out there, especially for the Victorian or “Steam era” styles, and there was not a lot of variety on the first half of the 1900’s when it comes to mens hairstyles.As frustrating as this may seem it does offer quite a simple solution, and that is simply to be more relaxed about creating period-specific hair styles and work with what you have to create a look you like. For example, dashing steampunk and Victorian gothic gents can easily wear long coiffured hairstyles or short sculpted waves, and with some styling advice, pictures and video, Wildilocks wants to help you create your own period mens hairstyle.
For our first subject we have the dashing Sir Frederick Chook, who modeled several styles for us, which we will feature in three separate articles: the decadent Byronesque coiffure, the distinguished hidden ponytail, and dashing finger waves for long hair. This article is number one of this series: the decadent Byronesque Coiffure.
For this look we started with long dry hair, and using a large barrel iron and a light coat of hairspray we curled each section from bottom to top as demonstrated below:
Be sure to decide on your part before you start. Each curl was secured with a pin curl to allow it to cool without dropping, our intention was to create a natural-looking curl that would stand up to styling and a photo-shoot (or indeed a night out).If your prefer a strong curl then by all means use a smaller iron; the smaller the iron, the tighter the curl and the further back in history you go, so be aware that long and very small curls on a men were more general to the 1700’s and 1800’s than the Victorian era.Once the hair has cooled (feel the pin curl clip; if it is cold then your hair has set), release carefully and loosen with your fingers.
Use a small amount of wax/pomade to define your locks, as Kat demonstrates very thoroughly below:
The finished result should be loose, flowing, natural, but a smattering of more defined curls, as Sir Frederick demonstrates, ready for a night on the town:
In closing, recreating vintage hair for men means working with the cut you have and the look you desire, the rest is practice, or visiting a salon like Wildilocks that can do it for you. If you have a particular styling period or question you’d like us to look at or feature in Wildilocks Treats, please email treats@wildilocks.com! If you have further questions or comments about the above article, please comment below.
Kat Martin
Coming next in this series: the distinguished hidden ponytail!
Posted in How-To's, Men's, Vintage Styling | 42 Comments
February 21st, 2008 at 1:37 pm
[..YouTube..] this dude has a lovely cheeky face ^_^ great vid!
March 9th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
[..YouTube..] While the outcome is beautiful, the model looks rather silly during the process.
Granted, most things look silly unfinished.
And my father, who has long hair, is being attacked and curled. Thank you. This is wonderful. :]
March 9th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
[..YouTube..] While the outcome is beautiful, the model looks rather silly during the process.Granted, most things look silly unfinished. And my father, who has long hair, is being attacked and curled. Thank you. This is wonderful. :]
March 19th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
[..YouTube..] nice could u give me some tips for bangs, if u have waveyy hair naturally
March 19th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
[..YouTube..] nicee, give us some more tipss
March 24th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
[...] Wildilocks Treats ’s site is fantastic! I thought I’d share the latest post on the site which grabbed my attention: Vintage Hair Styles for Men – a decadent Byronesque Coiffure! [...]
May 5th, 2008 at 5:32 am
[..YouTube..] Really? I thought I looked quite smart!
May 13th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
[..YouTube..] sorry for the irrelevance, but whats the music in the background? sounds hekka familiar!
June 1st, 2008 at 6:39 am
[..YouTube..] LOCKWORKS!!!!!
i was just browsing around 50’s hairstyle videos for fun, and look who i bump into.
it really is a small internet after all.
(it’s tully by the way)
June 1st, 2008 at 12:39 pm
[..YouTube..] LOCKWORKS!!!!!i was just browsing around 50’s hairstyle videos for fun, and look who i bump into.it really is a small internet after all.(it’s tully by the way)
August 3rd, 2008 at 7:21 am
[..YouTube..] looks nice
August 6th, 2008 at 4:48 am
[..YouTube..] wtf was that
September 21st, 2008 at 5:25 am
[..YouTube..] 7000 views and only 3 comments?
September 28th, 2008 at 6:17 am
[..YouTube..] awesome much better than emo/mohawk/straight style
December 2nd, 2008 at 4:04 pm
[..YouTube..] ish it me or doesh she talk like thish?
January 25th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
[..YouTube..] george washington hairstyle??
February 23rd, 2009 at 8:44 pm
[..YouTube..] yesh it sheems sho
March 31st, 2009 at 8:55 pm
[..YouTube..] His hair is very beautiful…It’s better than mine!
April 11th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
[..YouTube..] i wonder what i would look liked?
April 19th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
[..YouTube..] Do people actualy walk the streets with this style hair cut ?
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:54 am
[..YouTube..] Yeah, I have vintage hair, I’m a guy. I grow it like my Slavic ancestors: looong.
May 10th, 2009 at 12:25 am
[..YouTube..] lightsssss!!! pls! :-j
May 12th, 2009 at 8:00 am
[..YouTube..] His hair is straight again… I don’t think that’s a good work.
May 30th, 2009 at 4:18 am
[..YouTube..] how old is your “vintage” hair? its been growing since the 60s or what?
May 31st, 2009 at 2:34 am
[..YouTube..] No, I am not a hippie, if that’s what you are getting at.I am currently in the process of growing it long. It is to my shoulders.
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:15 am
[..YouTube..] Totally!
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:15 am
[..YouTube..] It’s the audio quality of the video that’s affecting it.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:21 am
[..YouTube..] MELBOURNE!FUCK YEAH.
July 20th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
[..YouTube..] Great job! I was thinking of starting a vintage style (1940’s, 1950’s) series for men as well. My husband cuts hair so it would work out.
October 8th, 2009 at 9:55 am
[..YouTube..] Great style, check out the Evatik video on our channel, a lot of the frames would go well with the styles. Subscribe!
November 23rd, 2009 at 4:38 am
[..YouTube..] hey i have long curly hair and it just sits there i dont know what to do with it i thought you cuold help me??????????please thanks!!!!! love
December 2nd, 2009 at 5:09 am
[..YouTube..] He’s cute ^_^…the hairstyle reminds me of Gary Oldman in Bram Stockers Dracula.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
[..YouTube..] Lovely…but given the lighting, and that your subject is wearing a dark coat, could you have draped his shoulders in a white towel to let us see the results accurately?
December 19th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
[..YouTube..] don’t do anything curly hair has character
December 22nd, 2009 at 5:28 am
[..YouTube..] your lovely I would love you to do my hair your so sexy
March 22nd, 2010 at 7:29 pm
[..YouTube..] pretty dark in there for a business that depends on customers being able to see what you’re doing to their hair
May 4th, 2010 at 9:39 am
[..YouTube..] Interesting video, thanks for sharing. Would love locks like that myself
May 4th, 2010 at 9:42 am
[..YouTube..] Great video, thanks again for sharing.
June 14th, 2010 at 4:52 am
[..YouTube..] @Solechnaya
June 14th, 2010 at 4:55 am
[..YouTube..] @LDN25Muscle ish jusht you.
June 14th, 2010 at 4:56 am
[..YouTube..] Ish sho shiney!
July 11th, 2010 at 11:57 pm
[..YouTube..] HA!