When they are worn
The moments a style is made for.
Everyday
Most hair, most days, is worn simply: a ponytail, a bun, a plait, or a short cut that needs only a comb. Everyday styles have to be quick, comfortable and practical for work, school and heat, and they last through the day
Weddings
Weddings bring out a community's most careful hairdressing. Brides, grooms, families and guests dress their hair for the day: jasmine-wrapped buns and jewelled plaits in South Asia, the gele and aso ebi of Yoruba weddings, the traditional shimada under a white hood in Japan, the veil and chignon of a church wedding
Festivals
Festivals are a time for special hair. Women in Kerala wear jasmine in the hair with white and gold saris at Onam; across India flowers, buns and braids are dressed for Diwali, Pongal and Durga Puja
Rites of passage
Hair marks the passages of life: birth, childhood, coming of age, marriage, mourning, and entering religious life. Many of these rites involve cutting or shaving: the Hindu mundan, the Jewish upsherin, the tonsure of a monk, the cutting of a sumo wrestler's topknot at retirement
Stage and screen
Film, television, music and dance have made many hairstyles famous overnight. Silent-film stars made the bob respectable, Audrey Hepburn the pixie, Farrah Fawcett feathered hair, and Jennifer Aniston the Rachel
Sport and exercise
Sport needs hair that stays out of the eyes and holds through sweat, wind and water. Ponytails, French and Dutch braids, cornrows and buns are the standards for long hair; buzz cuts and fades for short
Work and formal
Work and formal occasions call for neat, controlled hair: a smooth chignon or French twist, a tidy bob, a short barber's cut with a side parting. Some jobs carry their own hair: the wigs of British barristers and judges, the covered hair of food workers, the regulation cuts of police and pilots
History
Hairstyles of the past show the tastes, rules and technology of their age. Ancient Egyptians wore wigs over shaved heads; Roman women built crests of curls; European men of the 17th and 18th centuries wore periwigs and women the fontange and the pouf; Qing China imposed the queue; and the 1920s brought the bob and the Eton crop