Posted by Fiona on September 21, 2006 at 16:08:03 from 213.78.74.158 user Fiona.
In Reply to: Re: Girls' Hairstyles posted by Alan Hakim on September 20, 2006 at 19:25:22:
This is slightly more than a case of semantics. In the 30s, pigtails were two ie either side of the head, often braided behind the ear, rather than covering it. A plait (singular) was down the back - you graduated to this from the two pigtails as you grew older, and it was taken to be one step on the way to 'putting your hair up' - sign of maturity once you had finished school etc. So the hair at this plait stage would have been of a reasonable length. Women would often retain the braid in their more mature hairstyles (eg with it wrapped around the head, or coiled in two 'earphones' either side of the head but not usually, in Britain that is, the European fashion with it just crossing over the top of the head, Alpine fashion. Some would, of course, merely twist it at the nape of the neck into a coil or a bun and hold in place with hairpins. Readers of the Abbey School books will be familiar with the variations in long hair styles. And those who have read Dorothy L Sayers' 'Gaudy Night' should remember the female don whose hair was forever escaping from her pins.
Also with the advent of the post-Edwardian hairdos of cropping, bobbing and shingling, long hair was somewhat out of fashion. It required more attention than the shorter hair styles and took infinitely longer to dry once wet. So Dot, with her pigtails which were obvously the choice of her mother or at least her parents, could have been viewed as somewhat stodgy - a bit like the GA who, if you look carefully at the picture in PM (The GA steps ashore) has a bun... We know Dot was in reality, not at all stodgy or old-fashioned but that might have been the first impression!