Why do period dramas FILMED in the 1960s get the hairstyles so wrong?

[BOFster]

I've always noticed this. They take so much care with things like the cars and the military uniforms, yet completely cock it up when it comes to the hair. Here are a few examples from films supposed to be set in WW2.

Was it a reluctance to have the actors look uncool? And do you think we get in right nowadays, or will people watching in the future be scoffing at the obviously-2010s hairstyles?

I watched the video for 'Steal my Sunshine' by Len the other day (am very, very busy at all times obvs, no time for messing about on tinternet). There is a weird thing missing from it, from contemporary POV given the setting of the video. Anyone else care to have a look and see what they think they would expect to see more of if it were filmed now?

This is an interesting image which compares Stephen Hawking's actual wedding photo with the reinterpretation in The Theory Of Everything. In the film, the actress' hair is subtly longer (and more in line with what we see as beautiful nowadays), and her dress is definitely closer in design to modern tastes.

Ooh that's really interesting BOF. To me, the original Jane Hawking looks as if she has had her hair very 'done' which she perhaps didn't normally do? Or someone did it for her with enormous Carmela heated rollers and then killed it with hairspray rather than brushing it out like it would have been e.g. in the 70s?

The wedding was in 1965, I think, and from what my mum tells me, rock hard helmet barnets were all the rage .

The hair is too long in the film version. My nan was always telling the girls to get their hair cut. Long hair was for the victorian grannies. Short(er) hair was where it had been at since the flappers.

I also remember all the shorter looking veils in the family wedding photos.

I can think of a family wedding photo of perhaps 2 years earlier with exactly that wedding hair and dress - NOTHING was moving

The hair was only lengthened and loosened by the hippies!

i think back then he hair, make up and wardrobe would have been done by just bog-standard hair, make-up and wardrobe teams who didn't know or care about historical fashions. Nowadays there are people who work for films and tv productions purely as historical experts who will know fashions, textiles, props etc suitable for each period.

One thing that I think they do still get wrong though, is to assume at a 70s wedding everyone would have been wearing 70s clothing. Not everyone is so hip and up to date, though. In my parents' wedding photos, the young are in flares but the old aunties are still in 60s style clothing, hair and glasses as they would have been a bit behind the fashion of the time.

Absolutely Nutella. I hate museums with '60s rooms' or '40s rooms' because they are always inaccurate - not all that many people would have had rooms stuffed full of brand new things including full set of new furniture, new decor and new consumer goods. Most would have had a lot less stuff in them anyway, and at least some of it was likely to have been older. They may not even mean that the display is an accurate room of the time, but they tend not to say that.

What about contemporary period drama where the actors have gym-honed bods and plucked eyebrows?

the hollywood pride and predders film always annoys me with the mens swept forward haircuts arghhhhhh

meandjulio

re video - tattoos :)

yay stare! It felt genuinely odd to see all those people un-inked!

i noticed straight away :)

Having said that, re pride and prej haircuts, I think the brushed forward style is more accurate isn't it? Brutus hair here

oh my mistake then :)

I find this fascinating! You can almost tell more about when a period drama was made, than when it was set.

I love looking at shows like Mad Men and trying to work out - does this look made in the 60s or set in the 60s. It's pretty damn close, but you can can still just tell that it's set in the 60s.

Shows actually made then just have a subtly different, more authentic patina. And it's not just the hair.

X-men days of future past is another offender. Set during the Cuban Missile Crisis but Jennifer Lawrence runs around in mini skirt and kinky boots - which are late 60s.

Not a period drama obviously but still....

i'm always on the lookout for Botox and trout pout in period stuff made nowadays . That really irritates me.

Flappers!
www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jul/17/some-like-it-hot-review-monroe-lemmon-curtis-wilder

Love SLIH but really - they made no effort whatsoever with Marilyn's hair, makeup or costumes!

It's why I hate period dramas, especially when they are supposed to be romantic. How can you fancy Mr. Darcy et al when in real life they would have only bathed once a week and would have never flossed bleurgh.

But thats exactly why they show Mr Darcy as Colin Firth. And if you're focusing on what the characters would have been like at the relevant time (even though they weren't real even then!), you obviously aren't into the show/film at all anyway!

But on that basis, nobody would've fancied anybody back in the 19th Century!

Clearly people were getting hot under the collar in the 1800s, and even having sex!

I can't get over Steven Hawkings wedding pic. He literally looks like a child.

My own parents were 20 when they married, but look terribly grown up in their wedding pic. And my gran looksaancient, despite being younger in those pics than I am now :o