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• 1 2018-05-24T17:21:30+00:00 Envy/Louise Brooks 1 plain 2018-05-24T17:21:30+00:00 This photograph is of famed American actress, Louise Brooks, who popularized the bob cut. Its sign of modernity and liberal statement worthy of shock value brought in much business to barbers as female hairdressers were not used to the proper cutting techniques for a bob due to previous expectations of long hair for women. The image gives a clue to the times with not only her hair, but length of dress. The decadent wallpaper, fancy clothing, and furniture symbolize the over pouring wealth present in America at the time, prior to the infamous Wall Street stock market crash of 1929. Her confident pose mirrors the newly founded independence adopted by woman of this era.
  
  Brooks’ haircut was her most recognizable feature and the one that many German women would come to copy. The bubikopf was a German variant of the bob haircut that was popularized by Brooks and others during the 1920s in America. Hair was to be smooth, chin-length, and worn either with pony or side parting. As the American Jazz Age saw an advancement in liberalism, female sexuality, freedom, and more liberating fashion, women like Brooks enticed women to dress like her.
  
  Brooks was an inspiration to many Germans who became known as “New Women” or Neue Frauen. The image of the New Woman, as a single woman who spent her days working and her nights in cafes, was often an exaggeration that bore little relation to the lives of real women. Nevertheless, the losses during the war meant that many young women were unable to find husbands. And Weimar Berlin’s nightlife did attract many women with newly disposable income. Brooks’ became an icon of the new fashions and freedoms to many of these Neue Frauen.     
  
  The popularity and imitation of American standards thrived, much to the disappointment of conservative nationalists. Where once it took months for a Parisian style to manifest itself in other cities, it now took New York a month to influence all women into an identical short hairstyle.