Learn how to sweep your ’do into a victory roll
Whyte Ave shop rides the retro wave with hairstyling classes
Actress Lauren Bacall in the early 1950s The talk was of pin curls, hot rollers and teasing combs; the air was thick with hairspray. The clock could easily have spun back 60 years, were it not for the hustle and bustle of Whyte Avenue on a Saturday night just up the stairs at street level.
In the basement of Rowena, the Whyte Avenue shop known for its retro, pin-up fashions, eight women with a love of style from a bygone era gathered last weekend for a lesson in how to recreate the 1940s hair fashions that lent stars like Lauren Bacall and Rita Hayworth such glamour.
“I just think it’s classic and feminine and beautiful,” says Roxanne Lebeau, a 36-yearold federal government worker who signed up for the $40 class, as she carefully curls and pins sections of hair all over the back of her head according to the instructors’ directions.
“I’d probably wear my hair in some variant of this style every day if I could learn to do it quickly,” she adds.
Instructor Christy Loiselle, a stylist who specializes in these looks, modernizes her own retro hair and clothing with prominent tattoos down both forearms and several small facial piercings. Fellow instructor Jerry Schmous also mixes her 1950s-style, flowerprint dress, peep-toe pumps and pin curls with a couple of birds tattooed on her chest and a large tattoo down one shoulder.
The rockabilly version of the traditional, feminine look adds boldness and power to it, says Loiselle.
“It was such a beautiful era. Everyone just looked so much more beautiful in those days.”
In recent years, vintage and retro styles have been growing in popularity, she adds.
Rowena manager Wendy Brydon says this first hair class, along with a second class on Dec. 8, were full within a couple of days of being posted on the store’s Facebook page. They plan to hold more classes on other hair and beauty techniques of the era in the coming months.
Krista Bowick had been looking for a class like this for ages, she says. The 28-year-old drove up from Camrose with her sister to join the class, after experimenting on her own for years with different retro hairstyles, copying them from pictures of actresses in old movies. Each Halloween, she dresses up as a classic Hollywood film starlet, like Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly.
And while her uniform prevents her from wearing costumes to her job at the Norseman Inn in Camrose, she does wear her retro hairstyles, much to the delight of customers. “I get lots of compliments, especially from the older crowd,” she says. “I’ve been told by so many people that I was born in the wrong era.”
Kirsten Glass, 18, says she’s been taking cosmetology courses in high school, “but they don’t teach vintage styles,” which is why she signed up for the class at Rowena, she says. She planned to take her new coiff from the Saturday evening class out on the town that very night, to go swing dancing at the nearby Sugar Foot Ballroom.
Loiselle and Schmous demonstrated how to create and set perfect pincurls and how to style them into a glamorous victory roll — the distinctive roll of hair at the front or on the sides of the head that dates from the early ’40s.
“I think the whole pin-up thing is really popular now,” says Brydon. Pop stars like Christina Aguilera and Katy Perry have popularized some of the hairstyles, as have a number of actresses on the red carpet.
The looks are particularly popular for the holidays, she adds. “It’s the old Hollywood glamour look. It’s so flattering for everyone, so elegant. It’s timeless, it’s classic.”
The Dec. 8 class at Rowena is full, but more classes are coming. Check Rowena’s Facebook page for updates.