Vintage Hairstyles: Simple Steps for Retro Hair with a Modern Twist

By Emma Sundh and Sarah Wing

From the finger waves of the romantic 1910s to the beehive of the rebellious 1960s, retro hair has made a comeback. Vintage Hairstyles presents all the tools, techniques, and step-by-step instructions needed to achieve eye-catching looks for every occasion. Trendsetters, hairstylists, and fashionistas will love creating elegant updos for special events or playful curls for everyday excursions. Featuring a history of beauty trends by the decades, a list of must-have hair products, and projects for making chic hair accessories, Vintage Hairstyles showcases classic beauty with a fresh twist.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1452143080
• ISBN13: 9781452143088
• Release Date: August 2015
• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.9" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Good overview of style trends

This isn't just a hairstyles book. It provides a brief overview of primarily American fashions, makeup, and hairstyles from the 1910s to the 1960s. Must-have styles, colors and products from each era are briefly described. This was not new information to me, but to a young person or anyone with little knowledge of the history of fashion, it is a good introduction and could lead the reader to seeking out more information on a particular period of time. Tools and products are described, a benefit to people who want to recreate the looks. Making your own hair accessories is a charming bonus. It is obvious that considerable thought went into the layout of the material. Overall the book is very pretty to look at. However, for someone wanting to do vintage hairstyles, this is where it falls down. So much space is devoted to making the book pretty (whole pages of one image -for example a hand holding curlers) leave little room for what would have been really helpful: closeup photos of the techniques for rolling and styling the hair. For pincurls, the images are about 1.5 inches by 2 inches. There would have been space for larger images if the layout had considered the subject matter as more important than the book's framework. The section on finger waves devotes two facing pages to a photo of a woman doing the Charleston, and then when actually showing the hairstyle on the following pages, has no room to show the back of the model's head. It should be noted that the styles are all on Caucasian hair; and, as charming as the extreme colors shown are (blackest black hair, blondest blonde, vibrant red) the black hair and the extremely blonde hair lose some detail when photographed. Overall, though, it is an interesting book, and it does contain good information and some attractive hairstyles. But the true would-be hairstylist will be left wanting more.