The History of Blonde: How Blonde Lost it’s Halo

Are you a blonde, and do you know where your roots begin? Have you ever been judged for your hair colour? As far back as Ancient Greece and Rome, blonde hair symbolised radiance, rarity, and even divinity in art and poetry. In Medieval Christianity, painters harmonised pale hair with golden halos to picture purity. By the Victorian Era, the demure blonde became a household ideology; Fairness showed modesty and a childlike innocence, and even in the 20th century, the blonde was often marked as dumb. For over 2,000 years, blonde hair has been seen as divine and virtuous, so why, in the past measly 70 years, has blonde become naughty, tempting and a little bit reckless?

Blonde hair in Europe

From a Eurocentric perspective, the influence of ‘the blonde’ in different cultures throughout history has been quite remarkable.

Ancient Greece

From what has been uncovered over the years, blonde hair meant radiance and a high rank in Ancient Greece (around 1200-323 BCE). Long before peroxide, blonde hair belonged to the gods in mythological legend.

Greek Poets like Homer and Hesiod described these gods and goddesses as ‘golden-haired’. Homer especially used hymns to praise deities with the golden look, as it symbolised rarity and value; most ancient Greeks had dark hair. Natural blonde hair was scarce and considered a treasure.

“Golden is the tunic of Apollo and golden is his mantle… his lyre… his bow… his sandals.”

Hymn to Apollo, Homeric Hymns

Homeric Hymns

The Homeric Hymns, a collection of 33 Ancient Greek hymns and one epigram, worship the deities and often describe the gods as having “golden” or “fair/yellow” hair. The Ancient Greek civilisation saw being blonde as close to godly and very valuable.

‘Apollo Granting Phaeton Permission to Drive the Chariot of the Sun’, 1690-1695, Johann Michael Rottmayr

The symbol of blonde being ‘ideal femininity’ survived into Ancient Rome, where fair hair could be bought, worn and judged. The Roman wig trade centred on importing real hair, particularly blonde hair from Germanic slaves.

Medieval Period

With the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Europe transitioned into an era of the Renaissance, and Christianity became the dominant religion. From the 5th century onward, Medieval Christian art used fair hair to signal purity. The Virgin Mary had bound blonde hair and a gold halo. Mary Magdalene, haloed too, often had strawberry-blonde hair worn loose to show penitence.

Both women are important key figures in Christianity. The Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, is the symbol of ultimate virtue, and the fact that her hair is bound in so many medieval artworks reflects this purity.

Mary Magdalene, often described as a reformed sinner, is one of Jesus’ most devoted followers. Her fair hair is often depicted as being loosely bound, lightly flowing off her shoulders; their different hairstyles suggest there were different levels of purity to the medieval blonde.

‘The Annunciation’, Sandro Botticelli, c.1485

The Canzoniere
 
Toward the end of the Medieval period, poets had solidified their literary code when writing about ‘the blonde’. It seems the descriptions of the blonde, from Ancient Greece and Rome, had carried through to the 15/16th centuries.

In poetry, there was the idea that those with blonde hair should be treasured; that they are celestial beings close to God. One specific example is the Canzoniere, a collection of poems from the 14th century written by Italian poet Francesco Petrarch. These poems consisted of 366 pieces, with the central theme being love.

It is said that Petrarch fell in love at first sight with a beautiful woman, Laura, a treasure. In Canzoniere 90, Petrarch compares Laura to a celestial spirit, saying that she is of “angelic form”.

 
“Erano i capei d’oro a l’aura sparsi”
“She let her gold hair scatter in the breeze”
“Uno spirito celeste, un vivo sole”
“A celestial spirit, a living sun”

Francesco Petrarch, Canzoniere 90

So far, ‘the blonde’ has shifted from God to gold, then pure and angelic.

The Blonde Muse

At the same time, 15th-century artists used symbolism in their works to show beauty. Especially Italian artists, as they focused on idealised forms and perspective.

In Portrait of a Young Woman, c.1480s, a side profile of a woman, with features considered to be perfect at that time, is shown looking off to the side. The hair, seen as a statement in this painting. Beautiful strawberry-blonde plaits with ribbons frame the woman’s features.

Portrait of a Young Woman, Sandro Botticelli, 1480-1485

Clearly, Botticelli had thought out the delicacy of this painting, with her tied back, soft strawberry-blonde hair as the focus, further linking blonde to an elegant beauty.

It seems this painting took inspiration from those early paintings of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene, as the hairstyle is a mixture of the two.

The Victorian Era

There have been examples of ‘the blonde’ in poetry and hymns, but not yet books. Fast forward to the Victorian Era, Charles Dickens was the famous 19th-century novelist and journalist. He would create gentle, innocent child characters that were blonde. Blonde became the symbol of innocence and a childlike demeanour.

Cigarette card of Little Nell in ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’, Charles Dickens, by Joseph Clayton Clark, 1920

Innocent and pure, the national identity of blonde women in 19th-century Britain. She had to be modest and shy. Illustrators often depicted Charles Dickens’ innocent, youthful characters as blonde, and this was seen as desirable in the Victorian era.

Dying Blonde Hair

Mid-nineteenth-century hair salons adopted diluted oxidising solutions that lifted pigment gradually. And so fake blond hair was born. Hairdressers professionalised the look and made the demure blonde mainstream.

Also, Late-Victorian adverts promised a “harmless” natural shine, which meant women weren’t as worried about damaging their hair. They were quicker to become blonde.

The “natural blonde” became a brand, and suddenly the question wasn’t Are you blonde?- It was how blonde are you willing to go?

Silent Films

The introduction of silent film, the period in film history before the introduction of synchronised sound in movies, meant that men and women could see those they fantasised about or aspired to be.

There was a massive boom in the number of women dying their hair to become that ‘fake’, chemical blonde. This meant the press treated “platinum” as a technical look rather than a natural one.

British studios and casting directors wanted the chemical blonde, as she was all over Britain and America. Blonde became a trend and a beauty standard, and it wouldn’t take long before these women were sexualised on the big screen. 

Up until the 1950’s books, paintings, plays and cinema all portrayed the Blonde as innocent, demure and rather lacklustre. Yes, there were a few ‘power blondes’, like Jean Harlow and Lauren Bacall. But they were almost ‘anti-blonde’ and cast as such.

Bacall had a sultry, husky voice and often played the mysterious and intelligent woman in Noir films. Most of these types of characters would usually be played by the brunette, and so these blonde women were only associated with power to a lower level.

This was not to last for long, as something, or rather someone, grew to fame and forever changed the way the world saw blonde.

Marilyn Monroe, American Actress and Model

Then came this overtly sexy woman to the silver screen, and the world never saw a blonde the same way again. She had the baby face and soft voice, with an hourglass figure that suggested something a bit more risky, naughty and rather bad.

Photo of Actress in late 1953 issue of ‘Modern Screen’

Niagara, a 1953 Noir film, cast Monroe as a scandalous and sexy woman, plotting to murder her husband. In the comedy musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, released in 1953, Monroe played a flirtatious and money-focused “Lorelei Lee”, who could manipulate any man to get her exactly what she wanted.

Publicity reinforced the idea of the ‘naughty blonde’, and after Monroe, blondes did not behave; the once virtuous and innocent blonde became a flirty, scheming seductress. She was now too hot to handle, overtly sexy and scandalous.

The 1950s and 1960s fashion

The 1950s and 60s saw the rise in consumerism. American advertisements that were very open to showing this modern blonde moved east, and British companies adopted their advertising techniques.

Poster for Blonde Sinner (UK title Yield to the Night; UK, 1956; dir. J. Lee Thompson). © Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

Women were influenced by the success of America, and they too wanted a material world and lavish lifestyle, one they’d been ruthlessly denied growing up in the restrained inter-war years. The sexy and flirtatious Blonde made its way to Britain, and it was here to stay.

The British Blonde by Lynda Nead

Lynda Nead is an Author and Visiting Professor of History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. has a new book celebrating the very British Blonde. Additionally, she has written countless books, including titles like ‘The Haunted Gallery’ 2008 and ‘The Female Nude: Art Obscenity and Sexuality’ 1992. 

Jacket Image, Pauline Boty backcombing her hair in ‘Pop Goes the Easel’, Monitor (BBC Television, 1962; dir. Ken Russell), frame still. © BBC

British Blonde is an illustrated book that, through Diana Dors, Ruth Ellis, Barbara Windsor, and Pauline Boty, traces how blondness sat at the centre of British fame, scandal, comedy and art. These women were not demure; they were British icons united by blonde scandals.

Let’s start with Diana Dors. She wasn’t just “the British Marilyn”, she was Britain’s answer to hunger for glamour after the war. The country still smelt like ration books. And then the curvaceous form of Diana Dors appeared; a gift wrapped in satin just waiting to be admired.

Diana Dors on the cover of Picture Post, 18 August 1956. © IPC Magazines / Picture Post / Getty Images

Throughout the mid-20^th century, Marilyn Monroe’s image was being devoured by the masses, and from that, Diana Dors solidified her position as the “British Marilyn” throughout the nation.

Her smile was courteous, and her body was engineered to exceed the frame. The perfected look and nature provided a distraction from the anxieties of a post-war Britain.

‘Dors’s body offered an imperfect and contradictory image of a nation still traumatised from the war… …of the pleasures and obscenity of consumption for those who have never had and others who might never have it so good.’

Lynda Nead, British Blonde

Then there was Ruth Ellis, the blonde who terrified Britain. Ellis was the last woman ever to be executed in the UK. Nead writes that Ellis became “a national spectacle of punishment”. She was absolutely vilified in the press; her peroxide hair turned into tabloid evidence of female danger. She proved blonde could be judged and executed.

‘Ruth Ellis poses for one Captain Ritchie, 1954’. © Hulton Archive / Stringer / Getty Images

Barbara Windsor brought blonde back as a ‘sweeter’ mischief. Lynda Nead notes that Windsor’s laugh was her defence, a way of “disarming desire through comedy,”. She made blonde cheeky instead of sinful. In a society where blonde had been overly sexualised and villainised, Windsor brought a fresh air of mischief to ‘the British blonde’.

The British painter and co-founder of the 1960s Pop art movement, Pauline Boty, is described as being “blonde and intelligent in full public view” by Lynda Nead. Boty refused to pick between beauty and critique. In her collages, she painted a lot of iconic blondes, including Marilyn Monroe.

The blonde has carried two thousand years’ worth of history on its head. Once it meant a godly treasure, then it meant innocent and finally a sex symbol; now it means whatever you want it to.

The blonde has been a goddess, an angel, a flirt and an icon. It started as divine and ended up daring. From demure to dangerous, that’s quite a journey for one hair colour.

To learn more about British Blonde, or to even get yourself a copy, please click here.

.Cent Magazine, London; Luxury Mindset