in 1910 Historically, women in the West have usually worn their hair long. Some young girls, actresses and a few "advanced" or fashionable women had worn short hair even before
World War I, such as French actress
Polaire, described in 1910 as having "a shock of short, dark hair", a cut she adopted in the early 1890s. The style, however, was not considered generally respectable until given impetus by the inconvenience of long hair to girls engaged in war work. In 1909,
Antoni Cierplikowski, called Antoine de Paris, a
Polish hairdresser who became the world's first
celebrity hairdresser, started a fashion for a short bob cut. He said it was inspired by accounts of
Joan of Arc. In the 1920s, he introduced the “shingle cut”, which became popular with daring young women—the
Bloomsbury set and
flappers. Among his clients were world-famous female figures such as
Coco Chanel, Queen
Marie of Romania,
Sarah Bernhardt,
Greta Garbo, U.S. First Lady
Eleanor Roosevelt and
Brigitte Bardot. English society beauty
Lady Diana Cooper wore bobbed hair from childhood through adulthood. It has been said that renowned dancer and fashion trendsetter
Irene Castle introduced her "Castle bob" to a receptive American audience in 1915, and by 1920 the style was rapidly becoming fashionable. However, it was artist and illustrator
Clara Tice who was the first public person who used it the United States. Popularized by film star
Mary Thurman in the early 1920s and by
Colleen Moore and
Louise Brooks in the mid to late 1920s, it was still seen as a somewhat shocking statement of independence in the young women known as
flappers, as older people were used to seeing girls wearing long dresses and heavy Edwardian-style hair. Hairdressers, whose training was mainly in arranging and curling long hair, were slow to realise that short styles for women had arrived to stay, and so barbers in many cities found lines of women outside their shops, waiting to be shorn of hair that had taken many years to grow. Although as early as 1922 the fashion correspondent of
The Times was suggesting that bobbed hair was passé, by the mid-1920s the style (in various versions, often worn with a side-parting, curled or waved, and with the hair at the nape of the neck "shingled" short), was the dominant female hairstyle in the Western world. The style was spreading even beyond the West, as women who rejected traditional roles adopted the bob cut as a sign of modernity. Close-fitting
cloche hats had also become very popular, and could not be worn with long hair. Well-known bob-wearers were actresses
Clara Bow and
Joan Crawford, as well as Dutch film star
Truus van Aalten. As the 1930s approached, women started to grow their hair longer, and the sharp lines of the bob were abandoned.
1960s and beyond with a bob haircut and a fringe/bangs In the mid 1960s,
Vidal Sassoon made it popular again, using the shape of the early bob and making it more stylish in a simpler cut. Its resurgence coincided with the arrival of the "
mop top"
Beatle cut for men. Those associated with the bob at that time included fashion designers
Mary Quant and
Jean Muir; actresses
Nancy Kwan,
Carolyn Jones,
Barbara Feldon,
Georgina Ward and
Amanda Barrie; and singers as diverse as
Keely Smith,
Cilla Black,
Billie Davis,
Juliette Gréco,
Mireille Mathieu and
Beverly Bivens of the American group
We Five.
Valentina, the transgressively erotic heroine of a surreal
Italian comic strip series created by
Guido Crepax in 1965, sported an iconic bob inspired by actress
Louise Brooks (as well as by Crepax's own wife Luisa). The bob cut was also popular with African Americans in the mid-to-late 1960s, reflected in such singing groups as
Diana Ross & The Supremes and
The Marvelettes. Many styles and combinations of the "bob" have evolved since. In the late 1980s,
Siouxsie Sioux, lead singer of
Siouxsie and the Banshees, and
Corinne Drewery, singer of
Swing Out Sister, had bob cuts for a short time. Actress
Melanie Griffith's character Audrey "Lulu" Hankel wore a bob wig for much of the runtime of the 1986 comedy-thriller film
Something Wild. Singer
Linda Ronstadt sported a very "Louise Brooks" inspired bob on the cover of two
Grammy award winning albums in the late 1980s: 1987's
Trio album with
Dolly Parton and
Emmylou Harris and her 1989 release
Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like The Wind. She also wears the cut in the video for her duet with
James Ingram, "
Somewhere Out There".
Annie Potts made an appearance in the 1989 supernatural comedy film
Ghostbusters II with a bob as she reprised her role as Janine Melnitz.
Phoebe Cates's character Elizabeth in the 1991 black comedy film
Drop Dead Fred got a bob haircut after getting part of her long black hair cut off.
Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of American
Vogue since 1988, apparently had hers trimmed every day (
Times 2, 10 July 2006). In the early 1990s
Cyndi Lauper had a bob haircut with very unusual colors; soon afterward, the cut became identified with
Uma Thurman's character of
Mia Wallace in
Quentin Tarantino's 1994 film
Pulp Fiction. The bob went into hibernation, but eventually became popular again.
Natalie Portman sported a bob haircut in the 1994 English-language French action-thriller film
Leon: The Professional for her portrayal of her character Mathilda.
T-Boz of
TLC also had a bob haircut with very unusual colors that was asymmetrical with bangs. Also, for the first two seasons and the first two episodes of the third season of
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, the character of
Lois Lane (
Teri Hatcher) had a trademark bob haircut. The character of
Dr. Laurel Weaver (
Linda Fiorentino) from
Barry Sonnenfeld's
1997 film Men in Black also sported a bob.
Julianne Moore had a bob in the 1998 film
The Big Lebowski for her portrayal of Maude Lebowski. Katie Volding, who played Benjamin “Ben” Cooper's little sister Angie in the 1999 Disney Channel TV movie
Smart House, had a bob haircut.
2000s revival In 2006, the bob was adopted by the singer
Madonna and, as a move away from
boho-chic, by actress
Sienna Miller. In November 2005,
Canadian ice dancer Kristina Lenko was asked to join
ITV1's new series,
Dancing on Ice. She went to her stylist in
Toronto and told him "Do whatever you like." He cut Lenko's waist-length hair into what is referred to as an A-line bob, where the hair is shorter in the back and gradually longer toward the front, with the longest pieces toward the front of the face. Later, ex–
Spice Girl Victoria Beckham decided to cut her own hair into such a style, helping to raise its popularity worldwide with girls asking hairdressers for a "Pob"—Beckham's nickname Posh Spice conflated with "bob". In 2007, R&B singer
Rihanna had a bob haircut in the video for "
Umbrella". She has said that she was inspired by actress
Charlize Theron in
Æon Flux.
Keira Knightley had a bob in her short TV ad for
Coco Mademoiselle. Actress
Christina Ricci also had a bob for live-action movie version for 60s anime series
Speed Racer and later.
Katie Holmes got a bob cut with bangs in 2007.
Jenny McCarthy is known for a sporting an A-line bob.
Bryce Dallas Howard's character Claire Dearing sported an A-line Bob in the 2015 film
Jurassic World.
Kate Bosworth is said to have popularized the bob in 2008. Shoulder-length bobs became popular after being sported by stars such as
Heidi Klum and
Jessica Alba. A shaggy version of the bob was popularized by
Dianna Agron and
Kate Mara. ==Types==