By Pauline Weston Thomas for Fashion-Era.com
Purdey and Princess Diana
Hairstyles in the 1980s were mostly large and larger. Look at any picture of the Princess of Wales and you will see every hairstyle women followed throughout the decade.
The decade began with a continuance of the Purdey cult hair cut.
The New Avenger series of 1976-79 and which starred Joanna Lumley on the right, is recalled as much as anything for its famous Purdey Haircut.
The Purdey streamlined hairstyle was simply a version of a slick bob with a definite back neckline contour.
Versions were seen throughout the 1980s and the hairstyle worn by Princess Diana at her engagement is a version of this bobbed combed forward style with the shaped nape of neck style.
80s Big Hair
This top row of pictures show late 1980's images of short, but full high hairstyles which owed much to the popularity of earlier punk hairstyles of the late 1970s. The effect was quiff-like.
Everyone had big hair even those people with short hair.
But as always there were variations and working women opted for styles that could be easily blow-dried and tonged with a cordless or electric styling brush.
Carmen-style heated rollers and hair rollers disappeared from most dressing tables as blow drying plus finger shaping of strands with wax firmly established itself as the favorite way to finish hair for the majority of women.
Hair was frequently brushed forward and stranded to create another popular style such as the bob picture.
Flicks continued to be popular especially as the hair got bigger.
Indeed it was the flicks that gave extra volume along with new hair products like hair mousse and hair gel.
The dropped shoulder styles, large shoulders and oversized jackets are very representative of what ordinary working women wore in the 1980s power dressing.
1980s Typical Hairstyles
Once Dynasty appeared on our TV screens overblown long hair as shown in the promotional picture below was widely copied.
Other styles in fashion in the very early 1980s were the afro perm worn by white people of both genders.
Naturally curly hair that was long or medium length continued to be in fashion and long curly spiral or just curled permed styles were also popular.
