Illustration
The Root of it:
A Timeline of Hair and Politics
"The Root of It” is a thesis that uses hairstyles as a framework to experience and celebrate empowerment asserted by woman against the social restrictions of their times.
Some of the themes touched on is self expression and how politicized it can be. “The root of it’ looks at the relationship women have had with their position in their times, how they have become a product of it, and have pushed back against it all by using hairstyles and hair styling as a linking theme.
Long free flowing hair in victorian times was seen as unkept or childish, but some woman grew their hair incredibly long, finding their own work as muses, actresses and models.
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Corseted woman sitting in victorian parlour, posing on a day bed with a smile. Her hair is so long it hits the floor and nearly rolls out of view of the illustration.
As a desire to be bolder many woman of 1920's America skipped their salon dates and went to the barber shop to chop off their demure locks.
Alt text and illustration of a gray a busy street of people shuffle by, some look bemused, unimpressed, and intrigued by a woman in red, holding a cigarette and waving to a male barber with a short bob hair cut. Ever other female passer by had long hair which was common in those times.
During the Great Depression many North American woman got creative and took to styling their own hair with repurposed materials.
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A mother sits on an old chair patching up holes in a sock while her daughter watches on curiously.Both have scraps of fabric in their hair to act as hair rollers.
The 1950's brought waves of revolutions and protests through the Republic of China. One subtle but powerful protest was wearing permed or curled hair as it was seen as an embodiment of western capitalist ideals.
A school girl with short permed hair stands looking straight at the viewer intensely. A banner is over her mouth and across the image. The republic of China’s flag is super-imposed on this banner.
In the United States the afro became a symbol of the fight for civil rights for African Americans and was a way to celebrate and value their blackness.
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A black woman stands defiantly with her arms crossed in front of a chainlink fence, with a large afro that takes up half the image.She has a black power fist tattooed on her arm.
Máničky is the Czech term for a long haired youth. During the 1970's where the Czech Republic was a communist state these youths had to fight for their flowing locks, protesting against forced haircuts and bans posed on them.
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A man and a woman with hair so long it extends out of the illustration, pull back an iron coloured curtain to reveal themselves, the Czech Republic flag hangs over the parted curtain the begin to move through.
During decades of civil revolutions and political coops, woman were left as voices in post-revolution times. At this time feminism and the demand for woman's right were woven together and unified at this time.
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Various woman dressed in 80’s fashion to traditional latin american garb, sitting in a unbroken circle braiding each other’s hair.
Today with the availability and variety of wigs, extensions, hair dyes and bleaches, woman are free to swap and change their hairstyles and have more and more control on how they look and feel.
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An illustration of nine panels. Showing the various different hair styles of three woman,Some versions of these woman are trading wigs and extensions to each other.
A speculative illustration based on how we may feel about the hassles of haircare and the possible push towards androgyny and ambiguousness.
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A portrait of an androgynous person with a completely bold head smiling with a futuristic nearly transparent shirt collar and floating earrings.