Friday, Jun. 08, 2012

The Beatles' Mop Tops

The Beatles had enough cultural capital to extend their influence past music and into sartorial matters. In the early '60s, the Fab Four were wearing mop-top haircuts, a longish style with bangs that resembles a certain household tool. Rock legend has it that the revolutionary Brits were inspired by two young German photographers sporting mop tops who befriended them in Hamburg in 1960. The look was a dramatic departure from the very short, conservative cuts of the 1950s, and it was soon mimicked on both sides of the Atlantic. By the late '60s, the band had abandoned the style in favor of locks that were even longer.