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EveryHairstyle

Style capital, India

Mumbai

Bollywood's city: film-star fringes and buns, gajras from Dadar flower market and Maharashtrian bridal hair.

Mumbai is the home of the Hindi film industry, and for decades the hair of its stars has been copied across South Asia, from Sadhana's fringe in the early 1960s to the hair of each season's hit heroine. It is also a city of everyday flowers: jasmine and mogra gajras sold at stations and temple gates, and the ambada bun and gajra of Maharashtrian brides.

Hair on screen

When the actor Sadhana appeared in Love in Simla in 1960 with a light fringe combed over her forehead, the look, inspired by Audrey Hepburn, became known across India as the Sadhana cut. Later decades brought the tall bouffants and beehives of 1960s films, the long waves of the 1990s and short cuts that drew headlines. Film stylists and hairdressers in the city's studios shape trends that reach small-town salons within weeks.

Gajra and the ambada

At Dadar's flower market, near the railway station, traders sell jasmine, mogra and aboli flowers from before dawn, and gajra makers string them into strands. Many Marathi women wear a gajra around the bun, every day or at festivals such as Gudi Padwa. For weddings the Maharashtrian bride wears an ambada, a round bun at the back of the head, wrapped with flowers, and the Koli fisherwomen of Mumbai are known for flowers worn in a neat bun.

Hairstyles of Mumbai

GajraJasmine and mogra garlands sold across the cityBangsThe Sadhana fringe of 1960s Hindi cinemaBunThe ambada of Maharashtrian brides

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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