Stars Who Turned a Signature Hairstyle into an Icon

Louise Brooks wore her glossy black bob with a blunt fringe from her teens, and it became the defining image of the 1920s flapper. As Lulu in G. W. Pabst's Pandora's Box (1929) she made the cut look modern and dangerous at once, which is why the style is still sometimes called the Lulu.

Veronica Lake's long blonde waves, swept over one eye, became known as the peekaboo after I Wanted Wings (1941) and were copied widely. During the Second World War she pinned the style up in public to encourage women in munitions factories to keep their hair clear of machinery, a rare case of a star retiring her own trademark.

Born a brunette, Marilyn Monroe lightened her hair for modelling work in the 1940s, and by Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) her short platinum curls were inseparable from her screen persona. The set curls, soft and sculpted at once, remain the reference point whenever a star goes for old Hollywood glamour.

Elvis Presley's greased pompadour, dyed black from his natural lighter brown, was as much a part of his 1950s shock value as the hip movements. It set the template for rock and roll hair, and his army haircut in 1958 was filmed and photographed as a news event in its own right.

In Roman Holiday (1953) Audrey Hepburn's runaway princess has her long hair cut short in a Roman barber's shop, and the scene launched her gamine crop. The short, feathered cut with a wispy fringe suited her slender frame and became one of the most copied looks of the decade.

Brigitte Bardot's backcombed, deliberately tousled blonde volume made polished 1950s sets look stiff. Her films around the turn of the 1960s, including Babette Goes to War (1959), gave her name to the raised, ribbon-tied Babette style, and her undone look still guides anyone chasing French-girl hair.

Jean Seberg's cropped blonde hair, first cut for Otto Preminger's Saint Joan (1957), became an emblem of the French New Wave when she sold the New York Herald Tribune on the Champs-Élysées in Godard's Breathless (1960). The boyish crop and striped T-shirt still read as shorthand for effortless cool.

Twiggy's sleek crop was created by Leonard of Mayfair in 1966 and photographed by Barry Lategan, and the pictures led the Daily Express to name her the Face of '66. Paired with painted lower lashes, the short boyish cut became the visual signature of Swinging London.

Mia Farrow's elfin pixie was restyled by Vidal Sassoon in front of the press on the set of Rosemary's Baby (1968), a publicity moment as famous as the film's most frightening scenes. The cut made a radically short style look fragile and fashionable, and it is still the shorthand for a late-1960s pixie.

Dolly Parton's towering blonde hair, mostly wigs for decades, has been part of her act since her years on The Porter Wagoner Show from 1967. She treats it with open humour as costume rather than nature, and the exaggeration has become as recognisable as her voice.

David Bowie's spiky red Ziggy Stardust cut was created in 1972 by Suzi Fussey, a hairdresser from Beckenham who went on to work on his tours. Short and lifted on top with long sides at the back, dyed a vivid red, it made the alien rock star persona instantly readable from the back of any hall.

Farrah Fawcett's flicked-back, feathered blonde layers reached millions through Charlie's Angels and Bruce McBroom's 1976 red swimsuit poster, one of the best-selling posters ever made. Salons across the world were asked for the Farrah for the rest of the decade.

Dorothy Hamill won Olympic figure skating gold at Innsbruck in 1976 with a short wedge cut by Yusuke Suga that swung out and fell neatly back into place as she spun. Millions of viewers watched it work on the ice, and the Hamill wedge became the practical haircut of the late 1970s.

Carrie Fisher's side buns as Princess Leia in Star Wars (1977) are among the most recognisable hairstyles in cinema, instantly identifiable in silhouette. Fisher joked about the look for the rest of her life, and it remains a staple of fan costumes almost fifty years on.

Bo Derek's beaded cornrows in Blake Edwards's 10 (1979) set off a mainstream craze, and the image is still among the most discussed in hair history. The style came from long Black braiding traditions, and the credit it received as a Hollywood novelty now makes it a standard example in debates about who gets recognised for a look.

Grace Jones's sharp, squared-off flat-top, worked into Jean-Paul Goude's graphic images for the covers of Nightclubbing (1981) and Island Life (1985), made her look like a piece of sculpture. The androgynous cut matched her music and stage persona exactly and still defines early-1980s avant-garde style.

Mr. T's mohawk, together with his gold chains, made him unmistakable as Clubber Lang in Rocky III (1982) and as B. A. Baracus in The A-Team. He has said the cut was inspired by a photograph of a Mandinka warrior he saw in National Geographic.

Sinéad O'Connor shaved her head before her 1987 debut The Lion and the Cobra, and the close-up video for Nothing Compares 2 U (1990) made it one of the most famous images of the era. She described the look as a refusal of pressure to make herself conventionally pretty, and it gave a shaved head new meaning in pop.

Diana, Princess of Wales, moved from her early-1980s feathered style to a short, slicked cut by Sam McKnight, whom she met on a 1990 Vogue shoot with Patrick Demarchelier. The cropped look matched her more independent public image in the 1990s and is still the haircut most associated with her.

Billy Ray Cyrus arrived in 1992 with Achy Breaky Heart, a line-dancing craze and a mullet that became the most famous example of the cut. Short at the front and long at the back, it is now remembered as a symbol of early-1990s country pop, half affectionately and half as a joke.

Uma Thurman's glossy black bob with a blunt fringe as Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction (1994) became the film's poster image and one of the most copied screen haircuts of the 1990s. Its sharp line recalls Louise Brooks, carrying the silent-era bob into a new generation.

The Rachel, the bouncy, heavily layered shoulder-length cut Chris McMillan gave Jennifer Aniston for Friends in 1995, was probably the most requested salon haircut of the 1990s. Aniston has since said she found it hard to style herself and grew it out, which has not stopped it from coming back round.

Keri Russell's long corkscrew curls were so bound up with Felicity that when she cut them short for the second season in 1999, the change made headlines and was widely blamed for falling ratings. The episode is still cited in television as proof of how much a character's hair can carry.

Amy Winehouse's towering black beehive, built up by her friend and hairdresser Alex Foden, took its cue from 1960s girl groups such as the Ronettes. With the winged eyeliner it became the look of the Back to Black era (2006), and it is instantly recognisable in a single outline.