Age and life stage
By age
Hair at every stage of life — from a first haircut to grey hair — and who decided, who did the work, and what survives as evidence.
These six bands are editorial tools, not historical facts. Age categories are constructed and vary by culture: “teenager”, for example, is largely a mid-twentieth-century commercial category, and in many periods girls of the same age were already at work. Each hub sets out the questions we ask and the problems with the evidence.
Every style page on this site has an “Age and life stage” section that separates documented use from marketing stereotypes.
- Infancy and early childhood
- School-age girls
- Teenagers and adolescents
- Young adults
- Midlife
- Older age
| Band | Summary | Common evidence problems |
|---|---|---|
| Infancy and early childhood | First haircuts, saved locks, bows, ribbons and curls — hair chosen, cared for and recorded by adults. | Adults chose and recorded the style. Photographs were staged, often for special occasions. |
| School-age girls | Plaits, bobs, ponytails and ribbons — practicality, lice control, sport, uniform rules and family ritual. | School rules overrepresent authority. Children’s own views survive unevenly. |
| Teenagers and adolescents | Peer influence, experimentation, music and magazines, school conflict, and a first salon visit or first colour. | “Teenager” is mainly a mid-twentieth-century commercial category. Magazine advice shows what publishers wanted, not what readers did. |
| Young adults | Work, courtship, nightlife, subculture, celebrity imitation and — for some — disposable income. | Fashion media foregrounds metropolitan and affluent consumers. Celebrity association is easily mistaken for invention or influence. |
| Midlife | Professional norms, care work, time, motherhood, “age-appropriate” rules, greying and colouring. | Often ignored by fashion histories once a woman is no longer coded as youthful. Advertising sets the terms of most surviving discussion. |
| Older age | Grey and white hair, thinning, wigs, weekly setting routines, respectability, autonomy and visibility. | Sources often stereotype rather than record individual choice. Older subjects are frequently described only by their age. |
| Life events | Coming of age, marriage, mourning, migration, illness, pregnancy and postpartum change, religious commitment. | Meanings are culturally specific and may be private or sacred. |