This week marks five years because the launch of Dazed Beauty! Over the subsequent five days we will likely be celebrating this anniversary by bringing you big celebrity interviews, cultural deep dives into the bizarre trends of today, and going back through the archives to resurface a few of our favourite pieces.

To cite our co-founder Bunny Kinney in his original editor’s letter, Dazed Beauty is: “an area for us to document, deconstruct and experiment with beauty in all its forms, in every dimension, and tell the stories of the lived experience each considered one of us has in our own individual bodies as we navigate the world, each online and off.” We hope we’ve remained true to our promise and can proceed to be difficult, anti-establishment, diverse and exciting. Thanks for being a part of our journey.

What we appear to be has at all times been about so far more than is usually allowed for by the frivolous popularity that caring about our appearances carries. It’s how we present ourselves to the world. It dictates how the world responds back to us in turn.

The best way you wear your hair, the make-up that you just select is usually a badge of honour. A option to proclaim to the world anything out of your musical taste to your political beliefs, sexual orientation or sports loyalty. It might be a passport right into a scene or an expression of pure individualism. Make-up and hair can act as an outlet, a canvas onto which we will express how we’re feeling on the within, something tangible that we will control when the world around us feels capricious or the final word rejection of society’s expectations.

Back within the late 70s, a disenfranchised generation of working-class youth shaved their heads as a way of signalling their disillusionment amid social chaos and depression. When Margaret Thatcher and the Tories got here into power in 1979, they brought with them a period of privatisation, miners’ strikes, welfare profit cuts, recession, and high unemployment. 

From this fraught political and social landscape emerged skinheads, a second wave of the subculture which took its cues from the punk scene in addition to the previous iteration of the Nineteen Sixties trend. Alongside a uniform of Doc Martens, bomber jackets, braces, and bleached jeans, the young skinheads wore their hair of their signature style. For the ladies within the scene, known alternatively as ‘skinettes,’ ‘skin birds,’ or simply skinheads, nevertheless, the look had slightly more room to be expressive. 

Taking off with the identical buzzcut because the boys, the ladies then made variants on the look. The Chelsea involved shaving or cutting short the crown and back of the top but leaving a fringe and sometimes hair on the perimeters of the top across the ears. The same style, the Feathercut, saw hair buzzed on the crown, with a fringe left, long sides across the ears referred to as dog ears and a protracted mullet-shaped piece on the back. Think Lol and Kelly in That is England or Tank Girl for a cyberpunk tackle the look.

“Taking off with the identical buzzcut because the boys, the ladies then made variants on the look. The Chelsea involved shaving or cutting short the crown and back of the top but leaving a fringe and sometimes hair on the perimeters of the top across the ears”

Capturing lots of the faces within the scene was photographer Derek Ridgers. Armed with a camera, within the 70s and 80s Ridgers found himself on the front lines of the subcultures that emerged during that point, compiling a definitive record of the youngsters defining the aesthetics of a movement. 

Two of those kids were Susan Newman and Amanda Betterton who Ridgers photographed in Chelsea in 1981. Teenagers on the time, the 2 girls were skinheads and may be seen in the image with their hair buzzed at the highest with wispy fringes and pieces on the perimeters, expressions equally defiant and curious of their matching denim jackets. Almost 40 years later, the 2 women reflect on what the style and culture meant to them.

SUSAN NEWMAN 

In 1979-80, I used to be in my final yr of secondary school so about 15 or 16 years old. My best friend and her boyfriend (who were each punks) asked if I desired to go to a gig on the Lyceum with them. I had never heard of The Specials prior to this, and being a staunch Soul Girl thought I’d possibly go along, only for an evening out. Nevertheless, I can truthfully say that tonight out absolutely blew my mind and completely modified my thoughts and concepts about who I used to be and what I desired to be. The entire place was rammed filled with skinheads and rude boys with the vibe and atmosphere absolutely buzzing from all of the dancing and music. I finally found something that actually excited me; I felt like I belonged. Being the third child, with two older sisters with very strong outgoing characters, I didn’t know who I used to be or what path I desired to travel and this latest opportunity gave me a likelihood to specific myself; I might be someone completely different to what everyone expected me to be.

After going to see The Specials, I knew in a short time that I desired to cut my long, blonde hair so my latest identity might be clearly defined. Nevertheless, at the moment, there weren’t some other skinhead girls in my town nor hairdressers willing to shave my head so I first went for a really short pixie cut, which horrified my family, specifically my Mum who actually screamed. Little did she know, it was going to get even shorter and bleached white! After I began at school, a couple of months later, there have been also two skinhead girls studying who each had the precise cut I used to be after; shaved on top with long sides and back. I asked considered one of them in the event that they would take me to their hairdresser and so my latest style began. It finally cemented the look I used to be aiming for. I loved that it defined who I used to be at the moment and what I belonged to.

I had a number of people telling me I used to be crazy to eliminate my lovely long hair, others saying I used to be an idiot to need to follow this culture. Most individuals would just stare at me as I walked through town, mainly because I used to be the one skinhead girl and folks found it quite shocking. People generally couldn’t imagine a lady would do that to themselves; to completely spoil their beauty in this manner – my parents were embarrassed of me. But then a couple of other people step by step became skinheads too which enabled me to socialize with like-minded people and never feel so isolated.

After a couple of years, I began to feel I used to be outgrowing the scene and probably not wanting to be a part of it anymore; for me, it had served its purpose in giving me an identity different to everyone else of my age.

“The hairstyle was all about being different to what was expected of me, it gave me a sense of belonging to a cool, minority group that rebelled against ‘normality’. It gave me the arrogance to be another person, to cover behind and to face out from the group – it represented a ‘latest me’ and opened up an entire different lifetime of gigs, boys and music” – Susan Newman 

Looking back, the hairstyle was all about being different to what was expected of me, it gave me a sense of belonging to a cool, minority group that rebelled against ‘normality’ – something I might never have experienced in my small-town life. It gave me the arrogance to be another person, to cover behind and to face out from the group – it represented a ‘latest me’ and opened up an entire different lifetime of gigs, boys and music. For quite some time, in my twenties, I felt embarrassed about my time as a skinhead because it was looked upon with such distaste with derogatory connotations. Nevertheless, I now look back at the moment with absolute joy and an experience like no other. I feel grateful for the outlet it gave me to flee the boring teen life I used to be living and the nice experiences it enabled me to have. I actually have recently seen so many pictures of me (that I didn’t even know existed) and have been inundated with compliments about how cool and exquisite I looked – funny how the tables have turned with time and the look is now seen as iconic.

AMANDA BETTERTON 

I used to be probably 16 years old after I first noticed the emergence of skinheads in my town, this was around 1979-80. There had been an explosion of two-tone music plus not long after the discharge of the film Quadrophenia which had a message of finding your tribe and sense of belonging that called to me. Punk had been around for some time but at all times looked barely grubby, whereas skinheads had a sharper, cleaner look with their highly polished boots and crisp Ben Sherman shirts. It was a glance that was calling me.

I can remember seeing a couple of skin girls around on the time. I feel for me, it represented the final word revolt to society, plus a certain quantity of guts for a woman to shave her hair off! That they had a component of danger about them and definitely turned heads – something that was appealing to a bored 16-year-old in an Essex town. Fascinated by it now, a part of the attraction was also that you just were treated quite equally as a female which was virtually non-existent back within the late 80s, early 90s. I at all times considered myself as a skinhead not a skinbird. 

My hair had step by step been getting shorter from after I was 15. My mum was a hairdresser so she gave me my first crop, a sort of pixie crop. But this was still way too long so I used to enter her room where she kept a pair of scissors and cut it shorter. I finally went to the barbers one Saturday after work (I used to be a Saturday girl within the hairdressers where my mum worked) and asked for a no.4 feather cut because it was known then – your fringe back and sides were referred to as feathers. I remember sitting in that barber’s chair feeling like I’d arrived! One in every of the only a few times I’ve had a haircut and loved it. 

I do not really remember my parents having a serious response, I feel possibly they may see the way in which my look was emerging although I do not think they were overly pleased when a couple of weeks later I took my sister to the barbers and he or she got here back with the identical haircut, she was 13! Living in a small Essex town with such a particular look made you easily recognised, and friends of my parents were only too keen to inform tales on us. 

“For me, it represented the final word revolt to society, plus a certain quantity of guts for a woman to shave her hair off! That they had a component of danger about them and definitely turned heads” – Amber Betterton 

To get away from the local gossips, I began to go as much as London at every given likelihood I got. I might go to the Last Resort shop in Petticoat Lane, and a well-known pub where skinheads used to hand around in. The women were very pleased with our hair, I can at all times remember being barely envious of women with really long feathers, the longer the higher. l remember the blokes were equally obsessive about their hair, it was never let to grow out, and if someone did it was normally cos they’d an interview for a job, as soon as they got the job, out the clippers would come. After I was 19 I fell pregnant and I finally gave into pressure from my parents who thought it was best if I grew out my hair for motherhood, although what difference a haircut makes I do not know.

The haircut was definitely a way of pushing boundaries, a mini revolt. It gave me confidence and it gave me a way of belonging in a time when there wasn’t much else occurring – in 81-82 there was high unemployment. I look back on my skinhead years with an enormous smile, I had the very best time, got as much as all sorts, and made a number of friends from throughout. There was very much a comradery with skins and I’m still in contact with some.

I’d love to return to that look but I’m not so daring anymore, and age has got the higher of me – I’m 56! I do every 10 years or so find yourself with a pixie crop and bleach it blonde, I can feel it calling me again. In the mean time it’s a brief bob with an undercut, no.3, my very own secret nod to my past.

This text was originally published 28 December 2020.