At Moscow's Alternative Hair Show, hairstyles you would never be able to pull off

Above and below: models at the Alternative Hair Show in Moscow's Kremlin, September 28, 2011. (REUTERS/Denis Sinyakov)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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DekaThunder

Those hairstyles remind me of ice cream and pastries.

… and now I’m hungry.
Lobster

If it’s less than 50% hair, it’s not a hairstyle. It’s a hat.
scruss

Oh no, now I have “Bulbous Bouffant” playing in my head …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uuCNAwXGaQ
- Lobster
  
  Macadamia… OOOH!
M Carlson

Lady Gaga will be recreating these soon.
absimiliard

Hrmmm.

Wildly disparate income inequalities? Check.

Crazy stupid hair for the rich? Check.

Increasingly violent rhetoric from both the poor and rich? Check.

If I substitute “aristocracy” for “rich” can I make a more clear analogy to pre-Revolutionary France?

-abs swears he’s going to learn knitting, just so that when the guillotines go up in Times Square he will look more authentic in his Mdme. DeFarge costume…..
- http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin
  
  poor punks can have awesome hair, too, that’s a silly thing to say. everything in these fancy photos can be re-created with cheap materials and a LOT of time and dedication…
  - Lobster
    
    Absolutely. Just find some runoff from a plastic factory.
  - http://www.facebook.com/aaron.klayer Aaron Klayer
    
    Really? Because isn’t the title of this post “At Moscow’s Alternative Hair Show, hair styles you would never be able to pull off?”
    
    So which is it? We can or cannot pull these hair styles off? I gotta know!
    - http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin
      
      pull off meaning you’d look like a DORK because you’re not fabulous enough (nor am i). also, you missed the hidden “LOL” tag.
    - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002490367699 P.s. Octochicken
      
      Yes, with Elmer’s glue and your own long hair you can achieve these looks. A little cheap Manic Panic color and you’re there – it’s even washable. So yes, anyone who has a few dollars in their pocket can do this, so long as they look past their own noses and their concept of something artistic being out of reach for everyone but the rich.
  - absimiliard
    
    Oh I’m only half serious. The serious half was about how much that initial photo struck me as reminiscent of the woodcuts I’ve seen of the hair the French ladies of the court were wearing at the tail end of their rule. (“their” being the aristocracy of course) Also, in all seriousness, I’m well aware that I know so little of fashion (and hair-style) that my assumption that haute-couteur is for the rich could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure the market for that fashion is the rich and not poor punks. (I could be wrong on that too, of course)
    
    The less serious half was me being me and going off on a tangent involving me in a Revolutionary period dress, not that the thought of me knitting is any more plausible.
    
    That said, c’mon Xeni, you know that first photo reminds you of Marie Antoinette . . . ..
    
    -abs would never really knit, but there is photographic evidence that he’s dressed up as his wife (then girlfriend) for Halloween, since then he’s honored all of the fervent requests he recieved from friends “That you Never, EVER, Do That Again!”
    - http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin
      
      they are pretty awesome, and they definitely riff on royalty. sometimes things exist in the world of expensive fashion AND poor punks at the same time. And more to the point, things are lifted from one world and appropriated in another.
      
      but this is all overthinking too much! look at the awesome hair, man.
      - absimiliard
        
        I’ll give you the awesomeness of the hair.
        
        But, just my opinion, the two dresses in the fourth photo, the ones with the feathers and the one in back with the massive drapes of pearls, just blow the hair away.
        
        For what it’s worth I prefer the hair in that photo too. The braiding on the foreground model looks much more impressive to me than any of the designs requiring prosthetics as a structural base.
        
        -abs admits he’s not the “arsty” one in his marriage, may he direct you to his belly-dancing, sci-fi-writing, wife “Zia” instead
  - boo
    
    Absolutely correct. You can boil flax seeds to produce what used to be called “Dippity-Doo”. Your other alternative for ‘fixing’ the hair is a trick used by those lovely ladies of the pool — synchronised swimmers.
    
    Their trick is jello: preferably a pale colour (unless the grape or raspberry matches your hair) mixed with half the water. You need to coat the hair while the mix is still soft and then keep your head as immobile as possible until absolutely everything sets. (It helps to apply cold, so walking outside in the winter works for people in more northerly climes, sticking your head in the freezer and holding very still works in the South.)
    
    This hair treatment will last through all the timed requirements of a synchro competition.
    
    I refuse to explain how I know this on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Their trick is jello: preferably a pale colour (unless the grape or raspberry matches your hair) mixed with half the water.
      
      They make unflavored (and uncolored) gelatin. Mix it at 16X normal strength and it comes out rock hard. It won’t work in a really hot climate.
- marilove
  
  Crazy hair styles are nothing new, nor are hair shows. I don’t know much about the subject, but African Americans, for instance, like to do funky hair styles and show ‘em off. It’s not a “rich thing” for sure.
  - http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin
    
    totally.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  If I substitute “aristocracy” for “rich” can I make a more clear analogy to pre-Revolutionary France?
  
  Revolution in France
  - absimiliard
    
    The lyrics don’t always scan quite right, and she definitely goes into more historical detail than Bad Romance has time for, which is why I think it repeats a few times.
    
    -abs has to admit it tickles his “I Like This” bone though
- eviladrian
  
  You’re not suggesting there might be some kind of socialist revolution, in Russia of all places?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000977350178 John TheBadger

In Soviet Russia, hairstyle wears you!
Huwman

If airport security is now searching afros, I’d love to see what would happen if one of these ladies tried to get on a flight. The model in the first picture could have a nuclear bomb in there!
Gunn

The Kremlin sure has come a long way. Baby.
http://artdonovan.typepad.com Art

Hey…this might be a good look for me :)
Frank W

“We come in peace.”
http://twitter.com/petdance Andy Lester

There was once a girl who had hair like that and she couldn’t wash it and then one day she died because spiders were living in it and they ate into her brain.
Aeiluindae

I swear that those hair designers got whatever degree hair designers get on Naboo. I just can’t ever see anybody not looking absurd with hair like that.
peregrinus

I bet I could pull it off (if I tugged hard enough) only kidding.

Those dos rock, and I would totally utterly dig a head with that on it. Although nos. 4 & 5 … save them for Ascot.
GregS

Didn’t I see a hairstyle like that first one in “Mars Attacks”?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=774710359 Edsel G. Tattooer

Cool hair Flock of seagulls anyone?
Shibi_SF

I have been in hair shows and, while ours were more of the Punk and New Wave ilk of the 80′s (yes yes, it was the 80′s!), the stylists used extra-strength hair gels, egg whites, Diet Coke and hair sprays/lacquers as fixatives. I had to lay on my back and rotate my head from side to side while my hair dangled off the edge of a table for 4.5 hours. This was to achieve a ‘windblown Medusa’ look and I recall it to be not very comfortable. For the taller, more gravity-defying hair styles, the stylists used foam cones, balls and other shapes as foundations (and they wrapped the girls’ hair around the foam, pinning it with bobby pins and sticking them into the foam in discreet places). Those hair shows did require that all hair-dos used the victims’ real hair — no extensions — but foam inserts were, I guess, fair game.
twency

Somebody’s been stocking up on Bumpits.
Duridy Duridy

Reminds me of the old SNL sketch “Veterans of Foreign Hairdos”. I couldn’t find a clip online, but it was a series of interviews of ashamed people with insane hairstyles saying things like “I was in a movie theatre in Romania when this man told me he could do my hair for only $5. So I said OK… and… and… when he was done I reached up to touch it and I CUT MY HAND ON MY HAIR!”
jackie31337

The one with the intricate braiding would not be resource-intensive to pull off at home, but I suspect it would take a heck of a long time.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_P45AWNO4B6PD5PAZSXB4BAIF4Y L Lrsn

Does this mean that it will be easier to buy a curling iron in Russia now?
http://twitter.com/Noadi Sheryl

Actually the 4th one down is really pretty and while probably time consuming to do wouldn’t be hard to pull off (the outfit on the other hand not so much).
Brood-X

This seems so cruel to subject these models to this.

I want to start an advocacy group , People for the Ethical Treatment of Models. If anyone is interested please email me.