Photographer William Langley of Dallas needed a model with long hair for a shoot in 1959. The model’s hair had to flow with the wind. However, there was no model available locally that would be suitable for the job. They all had too short hair.
Afterward, the Dallas Morning-Herald published a story discussing Langley’s situation, in which they wrote that long hair was “out of date as a raccoon coat.” So, what happened? The studio was swarming with women with long tresses, all ready to let their hair down.
LIFE photographer Thomas McAvoy visited Langley’s studio to document the festivities for a story in LIFE’s June 15, 1959 issue titled “Baldy and the Long Hairs.” This headline summarizes the general topic of the article.
Amid the great cascade of handsome hair falling down the backs of 30 attractive young girls, alone and barren bald spot shone out. The owner of the bald spot, Dallas Photographer William Langley, was happily surrounding himself with a feminine commodity he had recently despaired of ever finding.
Female beauty icons in the 1950s wore short to medium-length hair, reflecting a neater and more contained era. Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn are examples of people with helmed looks, and Doris Day was anything but unruly in her helmed attire.
During the 1960s, everything changed, as hippies let their freak flag fly and societal norms, so to speak, were turned upside down. It became synonymous with the counterculture of the 1960s after “long hairs” were used in a joking manner in the LIFE headline of 1959. Briefly, Langley’s problem was very much a product of its time. A model with hair supposed to blow in the wind would have been much easier to find in 1969.
