Sepia Saturday - Bobs, Waves and Rolls

Sepia Saturday give bloggers an opportunity to share their family history and memories  through photographs.

 

This week's main theme was Aprons.  My mother  was a great apron wearer and maker - from the wrap-around overall for wash day, and the pocket apron for carrying dusters and polish  up and down stairs to the butcher's apron style for baking to the dainty frilled waist pinny for serving tea. She made them all herself and was a stalwart sewer for any local fete or Christmas fair. But I have no photographs of her in her work-a-day wear.  

 So, looking at the lady on the left here,  I have focussed instead on hairstyles of the 1920's. 30's and 40's

 

The impact on the First World War on the changing role of  women saw an abandonment of the  traditional long hair styles of the Victorian period to the new short styles of the bob, finger-wave, Marvel wave, shingle and Eton crop, with their popularity continuing well into the 1930's.

 

 An elegant unidentified portrait in my husband's collection -

thought to be a relation of his great aunt Annette.  

 

 

 

My great aunt Jennie Danson  who sacrificed her long plait for the new look.

 



My mother Kathleen Danson -Jennie's niece,
though there was only 11 years difference in their ages.  

My mother again - with more waves this time



My mother's second cousins Elsie Oldham - "Elise" c. 1920's

I have told the story of Elsie before on my blog,  but it fits this theme so beautifully I could not help but repeat it.

 

 

Bobbing, Shingling, Marcel Waving and Perming", was the promise of my mother's second cousin Elsie Oldham in  this lovely evocative 1920's advertising  blotter.

Perhaps the French adaptation of her name to Elise was regarded as more appropriate for a hairdresser.   The business was conducted from the rather less glamorous setting of her home (below) with the large adverts  in the windows and on the pole outside  

 



The Oldham home in Blackpool, Lancashire
with the adverts in the window & on the garden pole.





In the 1930''s and 1940's  a  softer look crept in, with curls and waves all the rage, and during the war the "roll" was the defining style.  This was the age of trying to emulate  Hollywood glamour, despite the realities  of life during the  depression and war. 
                                  



My mother again - Kathleen Danson

My aunt - Edith Danson

Another new look for my mother who seems to have adopted an Austrian style, with what looks like  braids over  her head.  She was always very proud of her distinctive widow's peak.

Some typical 1940's looks from my mother and Aunt Peggy

My aunt Peggy Danson 

 



 

   

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