Fashion 88 : Taking a Short Cut to the Power Bob
Suzanne Marlett, a free-lance producer of TV commercials, is 5-foot-2 and small boned. It’s a combination, she says, that could lead some to wonder, “How is a little girl like you going to be taken seriously?”
Having ruled out “sexy hair or hair I have to fuss with,” Marlett, who swims daily and travels constantly, has hit on what she considers “the perfect cut for my size and attitude toward my profession. It’s like a little black ‘20s cap. It’s very neat, clean and chic. It makes me look professional, but there is a feminine softness to it.”
A powerful hairdo only an executive woman could adore? Hardly, says Marlett of her Louise Brooks-inspired bob. “My husband absolutely loves it.”
He’s not alone. All over Europe and America, others seem to be falling in love with modern versions of the bob that Brooks, a silent screen star, brought to prominence as Lulu in the 1929 film “Pandora’s Box.”
It’s the cut of choice for many highly visible, fast-track women of the ‘80s, including Vogue editor Anna Wintour, beauty expert Kathryn Klinger and home-video executive Mallory Tarcher Dougherty.
Recently, both Ralph Lauren and Giorgio Armani featured bobbed-hair models on their runways and in advertisements. And Vidal Sassoon, whose first wash-and-wear haircuts in 1963 were bobs created for Mary Quant and Nancy Kwan, is being honored with new versions on the 25th anniversary of the occasion.
Compliments seem to go with the style. In the two years that Marlett has been wearing her straight, shinny bob, she’s been stopped innumerable times by strangers “who want to know where I get my hair cut.”
Styled by Allen Edwards so that Marlett can exercise daily, even when she’s traveling, the cut has lived up to expectations: “I swim, then wash and blow it dry. It takes 15 minutes from start to finish,” she says.
Edwards (owner of several salons including one in Beverly Hills) calls Marlett’s China-doll style “a great business haircut. It makes a woman look very kempt.” He feels it has a power all its own: “When you see a woman walk in with it, you notice her right away. It’s a strong cut with strong lines.”
The power bob can be as extreme as Marlett’s, he explains, which is very short at the nape of the neck and longer on the sides, or as conservative as Wintour’s all-one-length style.
Klinger, whose fluffy, shoulder-length hair always figured prominently in ads with mother Georgette for their skin-care salons, switched to a bouncy bob a few months ago. “It was a big chop,” she says without regrets. “I wanted something fast and easy, and I really felt like a change.”
Styled by Steven Miofsky at the Klinger salon in Beverly Hills, her hair has both clout (“It makes a woman look confident”) and popularity. On a recent business trip to New York, she discovered a cousin, two friends and her mother all had bobbed hair.
Although the cut takes patience and precision, care seems to be a breeze. Klinger, a busy company president, wife and mother, has found “all I do is wash it and let it dry. If I want the bangs forward, that’s all I blow dry.”
Tarcher Dougherty says her curly bob (cut by stylist Arthur Bruckel, who makes house calls only) “definitely conveys power. It’s very natural but very strong. It’s sophisticated as opposed to flirtatious or prim. But with a bit of mousse, it goes a little bit sexy.”
Christopher Brooker, international creative director for Vidal Sassoon, adds: “Hair is going shorter. People want a good haircut and the bob is the first step in that process. They’re fed up with the long, fried look.”
For “a plain bob,” Brooker cuts the hair three times: dry, wet and dry again, “because I find I get a very good line that way. It requires the minimum amount of maintenance and very little blow drying.”
Brooker, who is familiar with Wintour’s hair, having styled it a number of years ago in New York, says her current bob requires heavy, subtle layering to bring out fullness and texture.
But the sleek Wintour cut isn’t for everyone, say a number of stylists, including Brooker and Angelo di Biase, hair and makeup artist at Umberto in Beverly Hills.
“It’s a statement. It’s for women who know who they are,” Di Biase says. He will suggest a bob to women as an easy way to grow out layered hair. But he thinks women who want the style for other reasons “have to be thin, fit and groomed from head to toe. It loses its meaning without the rest. It’s the crowning glory haircut, it’s so simple.”
