Yearbooks from your local antique store are an amazing resource for finding inspirational vintage hair and makeup ideas based on the era you are trying to emulate.
One of my favorite, inexpensive places to find a plethora of images is old yearbooks. I picked these 2 up a little while ago at a local antique mall for about $30 for the pair. They are from 1929 and 1938. They are the same school, in 1929 known as Colorado Agricultural College, in 1938 known as Colorado State College, and now known as Colorado State University in Fort Collins.
Yearbooks are about the most useful thing there is for dating hairstyles. If you are working on a theatrical production, they can’t be beat for giving you a host of options for hairstyles.
1929 Yearbook Pictures
I really like the comparison of these 2 yearbooks to each other. You can see a great contrast between the hairstyles popular between the 2 different decades, the flapper deco bobs and the pre-war hairstyles.
You can also breakdown the styles to their parts. I wish I had had this book back when I did my posting on two-toned hair through the 20th century.
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6 Comments
Erica
I love this! The pictures are too cool, I especially like the ones from 1938. Great post!
Emily & Gracie
The 1938 annual is boss, but I quite like the ’29, too. I would love to see more of them both!
xGracie
Sarah Goddard
Eerie – I’m off to Fort Collins tomorrow!
Latoya D. Brown
Did anyone notice the twins at the top of the ’39 page?
Veiled Glory
Having worked in a University Archives – I would *highly* recommend contacting any college/university archives when you make purchases such as these. After you have garnered as much inspiration as you like from yearbooks, you can donate them to the institution. Earlier yearbooks are often the most rare and they like to keep spare copies on hand. Yearbooks also provide extra biographical information if they were signed by students and faculty.
Evelyn
I love looking at old yearbooks! The are great inspiration. You can also look at old yearbooks from various years on Ancestry.com but you have to be a member, I think.