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Hair: an AI Overview (excerpts)
“…It's
an evolutionary remnant
from furrier ancestors,
adapted to specific
needs like sun
protection as we became
bipedal and started
sweating.”
“I'm as free as my hair I'm as free as my hair
I am my hair
I am my hair.”
“Hair,” Lady Gaga.
A gallery of short
haired women: Tilda,
Annie, Liza, Twiggy,
Audrey, Shirley,
Elizabeth and Gertrude.
The Mses. Swinton, Lennox, Minnelli, Lawson, Hepburn,
MacLaine, de Gromant (Who? More on her later), and Stein.
Over the years well-known people have influenced hairstyles.
When Gertrude Stein was born on February 3,1874, it was still a
time for long hair for women, as it had been for thousands of
years. Hair was almost always somehow piled on the top of the
head, braided, knotted, rolled or tortured.
When Gertrude moved from the U.S. to Paris in 1903,women’s
hair remained long and three years later as she sat for her now
famous Picasso portrait, her abundant dark locks were neatly
entwined giving her the look of an Italian peasant, as Hemingway
would observe. (Later he would say that he liked her better before
she cut her hair.)
For another twenty years Gertrude would continue to have her
Victorian locks. It was there during her honeymoon with Alice B.
Toklas in Venice in 1910, hidden under a bold, flowered, straw
hat.
Or while helping out with baby-sitting duties with Hemingway’s
infant son, Jack or reading to her nephew Allan Stein.
By the time hosting the Saturday salon at 27 rue de Fleurus had
commenced, Gertrude held court amid the Picassos and Matisses,
her abundant “do”remaining in place. Jo Davidson captured the
look in his 1923 Buddha-like sculpture, a cast of which sits in
NYC’s Bryant Park.
Many of the women in Gertrude’s and Alice’s circle soon became
fans of short hair – Janet Flanner, Sylvia Beach, Margaret
Anderson and Jane Heap. Even Alice acquired her page boy bob.
It wasn’t until January 1926, as the roaring twenties roared
towards the soon to be tanking thirties, a few weeks before her
52nd birthday, that the fateful and historic day arrived which
would lead to her signature hairstyle. On that day, Gertrude and
Alice had a visit from a friend, Elizabeth de Gromant, theDuchess
Clermont-Tonnerre. She was a French writer and long-time lover
of Natalie Barney, the doyenne of Paris’s lesbian free-love coterie.
At one point the duchess removed her hat with a flourish to reveal
a new short hairstyle. She asked Gertrude if she liked it. Not only
did Gertrude like it, but a few hours later she commanded Alice to
“cut off my braids!” Alice, scissors in hand, began barbering which
continued into the next day.
The first of their friends who would see the new look was
American writer, Sherwood Anderson, who came to visit the next
day. Apparently, Alice asked him reluctantly how he liked
Gertrude’s new shorn look.“She looks like a monk,” he replied
with a nod of approval.
But was the acceptance by all of her friends so benevolent? The
cut was considerably shorter than what was in fashion for women
in the late 1920s and into the 1930s and was often characterized
in the coming years by friends and reporters as a look reminiscent
of the Caesars. Artists and photographers had long been
interested in having Gertrude pose for them, but now there
seemed to be even more interest, especially in creating paintings
and photographs with her in profile to emphasize the masculine
look. And Picasso? At first, he was concerned that she now looked
so different from his portrait of her. But at last, he came to terms
with the change as in reality nothing had changed, really. And as
he had assured earlier skeptics who said the portrait did not look
like her, his response “She will,” held true.
In the book,
Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories
,which
accompanied the 2011 Stein exhibition at the Contemporary
Jewish Museum in San Francisco, Tirza True Latimer skillfully
reinforces Picasso’s confidence that nothing had really changed
after the haircut, by comparing his portrait with the 1927
photograph of Gertrude by Thérèse Bonney.
“For this portrait Stein seems to have repeated her performance
of key aspects of the easel painting…She has donned the same
brooch and swaddled herself in an ample gown: the dark folds of
her dress set off a ruffle of lace at the throat. Stein’s orientation in
the armchair, her body twisted slightly to the right, reverses and
rhymes the pose she struck for Picasso. But more striking than
these effects of costume and pose is the fixed expression she
assumes, as if to replicate the mask-like character of Picasso’s
likeness…”
Stein’s look had always been somewhat ambiguous or unisex by
the time she moved to Paris with her long flowing (often velvet)
robes worn with sandals made by Raymond Duncan, the brother
of Isadora.(The Duncans had been neighbors of the Steins when
they were children in Oakland, California.) Later, post haircut,
Mary Janes accessorized Gertrude’s full corduroy skirts and
manly brocade, riverboat gambler style vests. (Think Clark Gable
in Gone with the Wind!)
Her Caesar cut had, however, made her come across as even more
masculine and authoritative in a time when those two traits were
almost interchangeable.Some felt she had become more
demanding and curt, though she could also still be cordial and
supportive of those around her. Her severe trim,though not
anywhere near today’s “bald fade,” made her truly modern both
in look and presentation. Though she and Alice never flaunted
their lifestyle, it was in many ways uncompromising and now
there was a clear “wifey” and “husband.” She was truly now of the
20th century and it was time to read and listen to the new powers
that she had been coaxing out of words in her writing for two
decades.
Q: And just for fun and to end with another musical
reference since that’s how I began, how does one celebrate the
100th anniversary of a haircut, in addition to reading some Stein?
A: Show one of the many short-haired photos of Gertrude from
online to a friend and play Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Turn up
the volume when the song reaches: “She tied you to a kitchen
chair. She broke your throne, and she cut your hair. And from
your lips she drew the Hallelujah.”
And then say. “Alice B. Toklas made me do it!”
Happy haircut anniversary Ms Stein. It still looks timeless on you.
Photos: Opening collage: Hans Gallas (2026)
Back of Gertrude Stein’s head(detail), Ray Lee Jackson (1937)
on altered vintage paint-by-numbers painting.
Final photograph: Charles Raudebaugh (1935) “Gertrude Stein in San
Francisco.” Photograph has never before been published.
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