Hair in the Square

Millions of years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and our mammalian ancestors swung from the vines, no one worried about their hair.

It may still be a jungle out there and a constant struggle to survive, but some things have changed. No longer can you get by with just opposable thumbs: now you also need sexy hair.

"It's a life or death thing," says veteran hair sty;ist Jessica L. Baer of Diego's at the Loft. Jesse, who herself sports a most stylish 'do--dyed a streaked blond and chopped at ear level with whimsical little sideburns--says her clients tell her that "it's like they're going to die if they don't get the right haircut."

Hopefully it won't come to that. But just in case, let's take a quick look at what's hot and what's not this fall, according to Jesse, Edward J. Shields and Dale A. Julio of DHR Stylists and Jerry E. Lauretano of Jerry's Underground. Hot:

WIGS, WIGS, WIGS!

"Any kind of fake hair--that's the hottest thing right now," says Jesse, whose hair, paradoxically, is real.

The upsurge of prosthetic hair will come as a pleasant surprise to all those victims of male-pattern balding out there--you know who you are! And until now, so did everyone else.

But thanks to the frenetic pace of le monde de la mode, you can now don your toupee and voila! Tres chic!

It's just as well, because according to Edward of DHR Stylists, a balding man is a cheerless man.

"Especially if their hair is thinning, it becomes the keystone of their existence," he says, with a sagacity born of 15 years in the hair styling business. "There's no one more hair conscious than a man with thinning hair."

RETRO '60 s

A word of caution: "the '60s involves flat sides, puffiness on top and something called "tucks" in the vicinity of the ear, and should be part of a platform shoes and bellbottoms ensemble.

A word of caution: "the '60s thing," as Jesse calls it, is rapidly becoming passe. Pas du tout dans le vent. Jesse, clad in a black velvet body suit and calf-high boots, probably knows what she's talking about.

FOR GALS: SHORT HAIR

"On my women clientele--thank God they're going shorter," Jerry tells us. Thank God indeed! Long hair may work for Rapunzel and her ilk, but here in Harvard Square it's Hare Krishnas and too-busy-to-blowdry undergrads all the way.

In fact, Dale observes, "If anything, the biggest trend around here the last couple of years has been less work." Definitely not hot:

PERMS

"Perms," Jesse shares with us, "are, like, way out, history, '80s." A potent condemnation indeed.

BIG HAIR

Jesse, Edward, Dale and Jerry agree that big hair is a dire faux pas. It is, in fact, a fashion kiss of death, especially here in this urban mecca where we all want to be as mod as we can be.

Dale laments that "you head out to the suburbs--Medford, Revere--and you're going to get the big hair, big bangs. The mall-doll look." Dale has seen these unhappy women. Eeek!

But he adds, in a post-structuralist rupture with classifications, trends and standards, that "it depends on the person."

"It's an individual thing, rather than them being like a school of fish," he philosophizes. Though of course, he says, it goes without saying that "they're not looking for helmet head."

YOUR HAIRDRESSER AND YOU

Sitting down for a haircut is never an easy thing. Let's examine the problematic of the hair dresser-hair dressee relationship:

You are sitting in a chair, mummified and vulnerable in a plastic gown, your own reflection confronting you on all sides and an individual wielding a castrating pair of shears hovering behind you.

You are in a position of almost complete powerlessness.

You know that you "aren't looking for helmet head," and that you want something fetching but also lowmaintenance for your locks. But where do you go from there? Jerry says it all with his observation that "some of the women are out-and-out frightened to death." No doubt some of the men are, too!

Fortunately, you are in the hands of a trained professional. To obtain a hair stylist license in Massachusetts, one must take a 1,000 hour course in hair school, pass an examination on both the practice and theory of styling and complete a two-year apprenticeship, according to Dale and Edward.

This is one power relationship that's not just a construct: your stylist has the know-how to help you; you want the help your stylist can give. You get a haircut; your stylist gets inner peace.

"There is that sense of instant gratification in a lot of ways," Edward reveals.

Jerry explains to us that his clients, especially the young set, are like lost sheep.

"My own personal experience is that the students need a lot of help with their hair," he says. "It's hard for them because they don't know hair terminology. A trim to them could mean anything to us."

And Jerry views himself as the shepherd for all these lost lambs. "I'm on their side," he affirms emphatically.

Considering how mentally devastating a bad coiff can be, it's no wonder we're shaking in our shoes. But, Dale says, our hair dressers understand that.

"A lot of people in the past have had a bad experience with hairdressers, so they tend to be protective of their hair," Dale says. The thing to do, he says, is to communicate, to relax, to trust--in short, to let our hair down.

"They have to let you help them. They have to give up some of their power," Jerry agrees. "I don't know what happened to trust. It's almost like a lost art or something."

Jesse fairly bubbles over in agreement with Jerry about how rewarding the rapport between stylist and client can be.

"Ninety-nine percent of the time you get to make people feel much better than they did when they walked in," she says. Plus, "You get to meet, like, billions of people!"