Nov 13, 2007

The Farrah, the Rachael, and now, the Posh

Victoria Beckham's bob beckons others

McClatchy-Tribune

MELVILLE, N.Y. - Meghan Lyons is a gambler. On a recent trip with her boyfriend to the Dominican Republic (where gambling is legal at age 18), the 20-year-old from Carle Place, N.Y., walked into a casino for the first time ... and walked out with more than $4,000.

The slot machine went crazy, she recalls. It "kept making noises, and I didn't know what it meant, but it sounded good, and it kept going, and people started coming over to watch," Lyons recalls.

It was much quieter last Monday evening, as she went for a different sort of gamble. Sitting in a chair at Salon Blue & Spa 190 in Mineola, N.Y., head tipped forward, she could hear only the quick snip-snip-snip of scissors at the nape of her neck, and the bass drum pounding in her chest.

Her hair is long. Lower-back long. At least - it was.

"Did you know you have wavy hair?" asks Leigh Anne Rodgers, Salon Blue's artistic director and co-owner. Rodgers leans in with her scissors, eyeing the newly shorn hairline like a jeweler appraising facets on a diamond. "Probably not," says Rodgers, "because your long hair was weighing it down."

Ever since Victoria Beckham (Posh, of the Spice Girls) moved stateside from Britain with soccer legend-husband David Beckham and a sleek, asymmetrical bob, the pop culture pundits can't stop jabbering: Will David actually make soccer more popular here? Or will it be the Mrs. who makes her mark?

Well, we're still waiting for those soccer stadiums to go up, but in the meantime hair length sure is. The bob - now sometimes called "the posh" - is back. Fans include Katie Holmes, pop singer Rihanna, actors Ellen Barkin, Kristen Chenoweth and Christina Ricci - not to mention wannabobs like Eva Longoria (whose hair was styled to look shorn at this summer's Emmy Awards).

Now local salons, like Nubest Salon & Spa in Manhasset, are starting to get calls for clip jobs. "It's a classic look, which is why the bob always returns," says Nubest artistic director Jamie Mazzei. But where bobs of old - with a severe, angular line - could "look hard on some people," the current incarnation - softer, more piecey - looks good on many, says Mazzei.

Elements like "a textured perimeter instead of a fine, true edge" make the look modern, says John Vater, co-owner of Spa Adriana, in Huntington, N.Y. Long bangs, he says - either straight or angled - also update the look.

Victoria Beckham started this bob business, then her BFF Katie Holmes quickly followed - along with plenty of other famous folk. And it's spreading. Turn on CNN and every other anchorwoman is sporting the look. It's even made its way to the White House, worn (in an extremely classic, non-edgy version) by new press secretary Dana Perino. And Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has recently grown out her short 'do, going for a trendier bob that in some pictures borders on the shaggy.

When the bob first surfaced in the 1910s and '20s - inspired by celebs like dancer Irene Castle, who lopped off locks to boyish lengths - it caused a revolution. Women's hair had never been so short. And the fuddy-duddies went ballistic.

Young men of the day reportedly refused to date women sporting the flapper's obscene new hemline (to the knee) or hairline (to the chin). As Los Angeles advice columnist Dorothy Dix explained, "She who bobs her hair will find she has cut off her share of beaux at the same time."

One Bronx girl claimed she was attacked by a marauder with scissors - rather than admit to her parents she'd bobbed of her own free will. (Investigators got her to confess.)

Judges even had to weigh in on the matter, when men asserted that wives could not cut their hair without first getting their husbands' permission. "Times have changed," declared one Chicago judge in 1924, noting how women had recently been given the vote. "Surely a person capable of casting a ballot must be presumed capable of choosing a haircut."