Source: Radio New Zealand
Rebecca Wadey can’t imagine ever cutting her hair.
The Auckland-based writer and former editor of online magazine Ensemble will turn 50 this year. Her hair, which she describes as “big, curly and coarse”, reaches well below her shoulders “to my elbows if I straighten it”.
When she surfs, it blinds her; if it gets wet after in the late afternoon, it won’t dry overnight. “It’s a pain in the arse,” she admits.
Rebecca Wadey’s wild and unruly hair.
Supplied
But she can’t envisage cutting it.
Superstition is part of it. When she was 26 she had breast cancer and the treatment caused her hair to fall out. “For me, long hair represents great health.”
But there are other reasons.
“It is much easer to have it long. I can do pretty much anything with it. I can hide behind it, flick it up in a pony tail or pull it over my face so I can do an amazing air guitar at a party.”
Long hair doesn’t have anything to do with feminity, she says.
“I just think we don’t have play by the rules any more. We’re doing it for ourselves rather than believing we have to cut it off because society thinks we should start conforming.”
She says her hair is an outward expression of who she is: “A little bit wild and lazy.”
Rachel Waldegrove, 52 also has no plans to cut her naturally blonde hair that now reaches the middle of her back.
The Hamilton real estate agent and mother of four has grown her hair long off and on since she was a child.
Rachel Waldegrove.
Supplied
When she became a mother in her 20s, she was influenced by the convention of the day that if you were an at-home mum, you had short, practical hair.
“I took a picture of Halle Berry with a pixie cut into my hairdresser and said ‘cut it like that’.”
She didn’t like it and immediately began to grow her hair again. Apart from a trim every ten weeks, she hasn’t had it cut since.
These women are typical of their generation. says 32-year-old Zac Harries, a senior stylist at Kitzo hair salon in Hamilton.
He estimates 75 to 80 percent of his female clients now wear their hair long.
“Very rarely do they ask for it to be cut short. And if they do, they sometimes regret it.
“Women are far less bound by old rules about hair length,” he says.
“Whereas 20 to 30 years ago, women once cut their hair at a certain age, hair length now is not dictated by convention. It’s an expression of individuality.“
Janine Simons, a hairdresser and executive board member of Hair and Barber New Zealand, agrees.
She says in the early 2000s, she began to notice hair trends change for older women.
“Youth culture stretched; women stayed visible in careers longer and remained socially active. The idea that short hair marked a stage, started to feel outdated.”
She says in the 1950s and 60s, older women’s hair was structured and controlled.
“Above the ears, neat napes and lots of roller sets. And perms were popular.
“Hair was sculpted into place and sprayed solid. It signalled you were grown up, responsible and respectable.
“That was very much shaped by social expectations and, if we’re honest. by a fairly narrow view of how women were meant to present.
“Now there’s less pigeonholing, less subtle pressure to shrink or age visibly on a schedule.”
She says women aged in their 50s last century looked older than women of the same age today.
“The tight sets, helmet shapes and heavily structed cuts of previous decades added years because they were associated with ‘maturity’ at the time. Just compare The Golden Girlswith Sex in the City. The actresses are at similar life stages yet The Golden Girls looked decades older.”
This video is hosted on Youtube.
Wearing hair below the shoulders and loose represents something bigger than hair.
“It reflects women having more say or more freedom over their identity at any stage of their life,” she says.
“Hair signals era, energy and expectation. Change the hair and you change the age we think we are looking at.”
US actress Demi Moore attends the 98th Annual Academy Awards.
AFP / Angela Weiss
Hair products have also meant hair can remain healthy for longer, though some older women with long hair ask for hair extensions to add thickness.
Hairdressers say the trend for women to wear their long hair for longer in life may also have been influenced by Covid.
“Women couldn’t go to a hairdresser for so long, they got used to wearing their hair longer and liked it,” says Harries.
Cost of living is another factor. Long hair requires fewer visits to the hairdresser. Whereas a woman with a short cut may visit the hairdresser every four or five weeks, women with long hair may only need a trim every two to three months. With hair cuts in major salons costing upwards of $100, that represents an annual saving of around $500.
Janine Simons says the industry has seen clients extending time between visits and choosing lower maintenance service as they juggle discretionary income.
So, will the trend continue? Simons thinks things could change again.
“There are subtle shifts to shorter shapes. These things simmer before they surge. All it takes in the right cultural moment and suddenly, what felt dated, looks fresh and directional again.”
A roller set anyone?
Venetia Sherson is a 78-year-old former editor who wore her hair long in her 30s and immediately regretted it. She has never been bold enough to grow it again.
Halle Berry is known for her cool, cropped hair.
SCOTT NELSON
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand