70s hairstyles
Layered, parted, and unapologetically long
The seventies were the decade hair finally stopped trying to look set. After the lacquered helmets of the sixties, the shapes that defined the next ten years were long, layered, and worn loose. Disco wanted volume; the singer-songwriter scene wanted hair so straight it looked ironed; the surf scene wanted sun-touched layers. Most of what reads as classic seventies hair today is some version of those three shapes, cut and worn for a face rather than a fashion brief.
Not sure which of these would suit you today?
You don’t have to be. Hairstyle Analysis works out your face shape from a single selfie and renders eight cuts directly on your face, including modern versions of the era’s signatures. $4.99 one-time, no subscription.
Try Hairstyle AnalysisSignature cuts of the era
The Farrah feathered flick
Long hair with heavy face-framing layers brushed back from the face into a soft feathered shape. Worn most famously by Farrah Fawcett, copied across the decade.
Long centre-parted hair
Long, straight, often ironed hair worn with a clean centre part. The singer-songwriter look of the early seventies, exemplified by Joni Mitchell and a long list of others.
The shag
Layered, choppy, deliberately undone. Cut so the shortest pieces frame the face and the longest fall past the shoulder. Sally Hershberger's later versions of this cut sit in the same family.
The disco blowout
Voluminous, gently curled, set-and-released hair worn with big movement at the crown and ends. The night-out version of the decade's long-hair default.
The stylists who defined the look
How to wear it today
Most seventies shapes translate to 2020s salons if you ask for soft, face-framing layers rather than the literal Farrah flicks. The shag is the cut that has come back most directly in recent years, often with a curtain fringe added. The centre-parted long look is now a default. If you are picturing a feathered seventies blowout on yourself, run a Hairstyle Analysis first so you can see the long-wavy and long-layered renderings against your own face.
See the era’s cuts on your own face
Hairstyle Analysis renders eight cuts on a selfie of you, including modern versions of the shapes that defined this decade. See what reads as costume and what reads as deliberate, on your face.
Run a Hairstyle Analysis$4.99 one-time, no subscription.