Since time began people have been styling their hair. They did it to show allegiance or involvement with a particular group, to participate in traditions and customs or for simply decoration. Evidence of hair styling dates back to 30,000 BC with the discovery of the statuette Venus of Willendorf, which depicts a woman with braided hair. Ancient Greeks and Romans valued long haired philosophers, however, their locks were not as long as women’s and men could not devote too much attention to their hair as this would appear effeminate. Over in the U.S. fierce Mohawk warriors of the Native American Iroquois League shaved the sides of their head and styled their hair into mohawks using boar grease or resin.

Later, in the 1600’s, military men wore their hair in a long ponytail to differentiate them from lower manual laborers. In the 1700’s, tall wigs were worn as a sign of high status for those who didn’t need to work. Fast forward to the modern 1920’s, women wore their hair in a short bob to reject social conventions. Twenty years later in the 1940’s, the German undercut commonly known as the ‘island cut’ because the long patch of hair surrounded by shorter hair looked like an island, was popular with European men. In the U.S. the crew cut, which originated from the 1930’s Ivy League rowing teams or ‘crews’, became the United States Military standard. Not interested in fitting these standards, the Screaming Eagles, the WWII U.S. paratrooper division sent to Normandy on D Day, decided to transform their hair into mohawks after being inspired by one Native paratrooper.