Sears to mark 50 years of hairdos $3 cuts, ’50s garb at salon Tuesday

BANGOR – For half a century now, at Sears’ Hair Studio at the Bangor Mall, stylists have been creating the flip, fringe-cut, pixie, bob, beehive, bouffant and other hairdos of the day. They’ve responded to fads such as the ’70s “shag” craze started by “Charlie’s Angels” star Farrah Fawcett and the slicked-back look made famous by Elvis.

To mark that milestone, Sears Hair Studios across the nation on Tuesday will offer $3 haircuts – the cost of a basic cut when the salon opened in 1954 – far less than the standard $14 charged these days. The stylists will be clad in capri pants, rolled-up jeans and other ’50s-style garb. Part of the proceeds will benefit the Sears American Dream campaign, which supports families and communities.

“As part of the daylong promotion, let’s celebrate the hair fashions of yesterday and tomorrow by remembering the styles that dominated the eras,” a Sears press release said.

Carmel Canade, a Bangor ballroom dance instructor, remembers many styles that have come and gone over the years. She grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., where her father was a hair stylist.

“I was the first one with a poodle cut,” Canade recalled Wednesday, describing the short, curly hairdo. “My dad experimented on me.”

“I looked good in the poodle cut,” she mused. “My father would always tell us when we needed haircuts. ‘You have to keep up the image,’ he’d say. It was a great childhood.”

Sitting in a black swivel chair, Canade was having a coppery red color applied to her hair. She remembered pairing her poodle cut with poodle skirts and short-sleeve sweaters for daytime wear. At night, she and her friends went all out in their attire.

“We had tons of cocktail dresses,” Canade reminisced. “We used to go out. Get all spiffed up. I miss that here – getting spiffed up.”

Canade plans to do just that on Saturday, when she will don a blue, shirred “hoochie-mama” gown for the Central Maine Ballroom Society’s annual gala.

“Thank goodness for ballroom dances,” she said, admiring her cut and color.

Lillian Purton, 76, of Bangor was getting her hair trimmed by store manager Marcie Lawhon. Her teen years were spent in New Brunswick in the 1940s.

“Hair was important,” she said, smiling nostalgically. “We’d spend quite a bit of time on it. I’d do my friends’ hair. I loved doing hair. Back then, it was mostly finger waves and pin curls.”

Because permanents then cost the princely sum of $5, Purton and her peers went to great lengths to do their hair at home. She described the painful, heavy clamps the girls would twist their hair into for home perms.

“There were all these irons attached to things,” she said. “It’s hard to believe what we went through.”

On one occasion, Purton gave a home perm to a friend who was wearing a sweater, and accidentally spilled some water and chemicals on it. The friend had to sleep wearing the smelly sweater because she could not get it over the large curlers that needed to be worn overnight.

And Purton fondly remembers the many nights she and her nursing school classmates would all twist their hair in pincurls.

“It was the good old days,” Purton said. “I think my younger days were the best in a lot of ways. We didn’t have much, but we appreciated what we had and the simple things.”

The memories of the stylists working Wednesday did not stretch back as far as those of Canade and Purton, but sent the women into waves of giggles.

“We had it feathered back on the side, and the big mall bangs,” stylist Laurie Gray said of ’80s fashions. “I had the female mullet. It was long in the back and short and feathered on the sides.”

Before they sharpen up their scissors and restock combs, the women plan to do some shopping. They will comb thrift and costume shops for poodle skirts, bowling shirts, and jaunty scarves.

“I think it will be fun,” stylist Cindy Braley said. “It’ll be a good day.”

The Sears Hair Studio can be reached via Sears’ automotive department entrance. To make an appointment, call 947-3876.