A generation or two ago a barber (for they were still called barbers then, not ‘stylists’) barely needed to ask a customer what he wanted. A “short back and sides” was the default cut – simple, practical, masculine and, perhaps above all, respectable. And, for men in particular, one’s hairstyle was as much a mark of respectability as one’s clothing.
The Evolution Of Men’s Haircuts
Certainly, for much of the 20th century, men moved from one fashionable style to another, but they were all, more or less, short in length. In the 1920s it was parted and Brilliantined (an early hair styling product that gave a slicked back,