Forgotten Old Hollywood Hair Trends That Deserve A Comeback

One of the best things about trends is that if you wait long enough, eventually everything comes back around again. But sometimes you need to take matters into your hand own hands and take a leap of faith by bringing certain styles back on your own. Because let's be honest: many forgotten Old Hollywood hair trends deserve a comeback, sooner rather than later. 

All you have to do is look at throwback pictures from Old Hollywood star weddings to know that there was something unique about the fashion and the style of the time — everything was about sophisticated glamour and originality. While this isn't to suggest that the trends we're seeing today won't eventually have their own cultural impact, something about Old Hollywood just feels extra-special. 

Because today's Hollywood is very different from the Golden Age, it's only natural to want to try to capture what's now gone. A great way to do that is by welcoming the return of the hair trends from the bygone era and giving them a chance to shine today. While there are plenty of looks to choose from, we think these hairstyles definitely deserve a comeback.

Although many women had finger waves in the 1920s and 1930s, it was Josephine Baker who perfected them. This is because she wasn't afraid to experiment with the sizes of those waves –  sometimes keeping them small, and other times going all out with large curls that framed her face in a way that was nothing less than spectacular. 

"Finger waves are a hairstyle that involves shaping the hair into sleek, S-shaped patterns, typically close to the scalp," celebrity hairstylist Ursula Stephen explained to Byrdie in May 2024. "This technique imparts a refined and vibrant aesthetic that evokes 1920s old Hollywood."

While we've seen finger waves trending at times over the years — for example, as one of the hair trends that defined summer 2023 – they deserve another solid comeback. Granted, this look needs a lot of hair product, especially hair gel, to keep the S-shapes in place, but it's worth it. However, if you want to get really old school about it, you can use Baker's technique that involved egg whites, which not only created a secure wave, but also added extra shine.

While flower-adorned hair is one of the trends we saw everywhere in spring 2025, no one did it quite like Billie Holiday. Although the original reason behind Holiday wearing gardenias was because she'd burned her hair before a performance and wanted to cover it up, the flower became something greater than a signature look: it was a symbol of empowerment. This was also the case for many Black women at the time.

"The fact that such a famous Black woman adopted a flower — which is soft, delicate, and beautiful — and made it a part of her signature look was a reclaiming of this idea that Black women are also beautiful in this way," Black hair historian Ayana Byrd told Vogue in 2021. Because of this, the gardenias were seen as a pièce de resistance, as opposed to just a pretty hair adornment. But you don't have to be a Black woman to rock gardenias in your hair, or any flowers for that matter — nor do you need a special occasion.

"Flowers are one of the earliest known hair adornments," hair historian Rachael Gibson told Dazed in 2024, adding that it's something dating back to ancient Rome and Greece. "People have always sought to adorn themselves ... Using what's available to you is the easiest way to do that." In other words, take a cue from Holiday and bring back flowers.

As we've already seen, chic bob styles are trending for summer 2026. Which is great news, because bobs are classic, timeless, low-maintenance, and never go out of style. But long before the bobs of today (as in about 100 years ago) there was the flapper bob. This was a sleek cut that fell above the chin with blunt bangs, giving both a severe and sultry look. It was a style that many women at the time proudly rocked, including actors Louise Brooks and Anna May Wong, and one that was seen as an act of rebellion and defiance. It also resulted in some women defending their decisions to cut their hair so short.

When opera singer Mary Garden bobbed her hair in 1927, she explained her decision in an article entitled "Why I Bobbed My Hair," published in the Pictorial Review. "When I consider the achievements of women in the past few years in the field of athletics I find it impossible to do so without taking into account the tremendous freedom-giving changes in fashion that have accompanied them," wrote Garden. "To my way of thinking, long hair belongs to the age of general feminine helplessness. Bobbed hair belongs to the age of freedom, frankness, and progressiveness."

Today, the bob has the same liberating effect, meaning we need more bobs, especially the pageboy bobs of the 1920s. "Cutting your hair short still stands for freedom and fresh starts," hair historian Rachael Gibson told InStyle in 2024. The key takeaway? Reach for the scissors and never look back.

Although we see a lot of wavy hair today, including vacation-ready mermaid hair, it's a far cry from the peek-a-boo waves that Veronica Lake made famous in the 1940s. The difference? Lake deliberately wore her long cascading waves over her right eye, delivering a sultriness that ended up being too much for the decade. 

Like a lot of trends, Lake's peek-a-boo waves weren't intentional at first. It just so happened that while filming 1941's "I Wanted Wings," her hair fell onto her face, covering her right eye, and the peek-a-boo wave was born. "I was playing a sympathetic drunk, I had my arm on a table ... it slipped ... and my hair — it was always baby fine and had this natural break — fell over my face ... It became my trademark and purely by accident," Lake explained (via Beauty Before). 

It didn't take long for other women to try their hand at peek-a-boo waves, but it was bad timing for the trend to take off. With more women entering the workforce during World War II, sometimes their peek-a-boo waves got in the way, resulting in injury. It became so problematic that the U.S. government asked Lake to wear her hair up to encourage women to do the same. Lake agreed, moving into her victory rolls hair trend era.

Although straight hair looks amazing with a short cut, bobs have always been curly hair's BFF. "Bob haircuts for curly hair are particularly great due to their versatility on shape," hairstylist Conor McLaughlin told Harper's Bazaar in January 2026, adding that short hairstyles give curls a pop because the texture is working with the cut, as opposed to against it. "You can easily create something rounder or tighter to the head, depending on if you take weight out from underneath," explained McLaughlin.

What's also great about the curly bob is the softness the look creates. Similar to the classic bob, you also have a variety of options, one of which is to have bangs. Claudette Colbert, who made the curly bob popular in the 1940s, decided her face shape was better balanced with bangs than without them. So much so that Colbert had this hairstyle her whole life, still wearing it this way in 1989 when she was honored at the Kennedy Center for her lifetime contribution to the arts. In other words, once you embrace the curly bob, you may never go back.