THE BIRTH OF THE BOUFFANT by Peter Nolan Smith

In the late-18th Century Marie Antoinette' coiffeur sought to camouflage the queen's baldness by upsweeping her thinning tresses to cascade over her ears. The femme fatales of the ancien regime imitated 'le bouffant, until the royal coif lost its popularity with the Marie's final haircut by the guillotine.

Two centuries later Jackie Kennedy, JFK's wife, reincarnated the fashion during her tenure at the White House.

American women idolized the glamorous First Lady regardless of their politics.

Overnight millions of housewives hit their local hair salon to acquire the look.

Movie stars such as Audrey Hepburn and Kim Novak further popularized the rage and within months the only women rejecting the coif were Durgin Park's gang of crew-cut bull dyke waitresses and the nuns at my grammar school, Our Lady of the Foothills.

The bouffant died out with the advent of the hippie era.

Young women grew long hair and the coif was once more threatened with extinction, except for brief respite from the lead singers of the B-52s and the late English singer Amy Winehouse.

Last year Jamie Parker and I were happy-houring at Solas in the East Village. We had the Irish bartender to ourselves. Moira liked a good laugh and Jamie told her stories of his go-go bar in Pattaya.

After our second margarita an attractive woman walked into a shadowy bar. Her bleached blonde hair was stacked high on her head. Stiletto heels added another five inches to her Amazonian height.

"A model." Jamie Parker smirked at the passing beauty in designer drag.

"Probably coming from a shoot." The actresses in TV show MADMEN had revitalized the early 60s, although few woman in present-day America could pull off the time-travel make-over.

"She looks like a 1960s transvestite." The lanky ex-con squinted down the bar.

"And that's a bad thing?" I caught the scent of Chanel No.5. She was high-class.

The goddess sat at the end of the bar and Moira went to attend to her need. She was into girls.

"Not in this light." It was almost night that deep in Solas.

"You don't like the bouffant?"

"Not at all."

"And why not?"

"Because the Mr. Kenneth who re-invented the hair style for Jackie Kennedy was queer."

"You have something against gays?" Back in the 60s gays were feared by young men, unless they were looking for a good time, but his was the modern times and gay-bashing was not in fashion.

"Me, I love gays, but gay hairdressers used the bouffant hair style as a strategy to turn straight men gay."

"What do you mean?" I wasn't following Jamie's line of thoughtlessness.

"Just that it's not a really natural look and women refused to have sex to avoid ruining the helmet of hair on their head, so men sought release elsewhere."

"With other men?"

"The sexual revolution freed us from our chains." Jamie was a couple of years older than me, although he didn't look it.

"I had a girlfriend with a bouffant in 1965." Jo and I met in the Mattapan Oriental Theater. We were both 13.

"And you went all the way?"

"Not even close." Steel-rimmed bras safeguarded against any attempts by unschooled boys to reach 'second base'.

"See."

"It had nothing to do with the bouffant."

"You're from Boston. Men from Boston love Jackie Kennedy's bouffant. You probably went to bed jerking off to the First Lady."

"Not that I can remember." Jackie O rode horses and spoke French. Women like her were destined to marry rich regardless of their hairstyle. "Jo was my muse. I know my place."

"Don't we all." Jamie was in the States visiting his mother. She lived in the Bronx and thought that he was teaching school in Thailand, instead of running the Pigpen A Go-Go featuring fat pretty bar girls and skinny ugly pole dancers.

"My mom had a bouffant."

"Mine too."

"It had them feel like a queen."

"Better than knowing your place."

"Send the princess a drink on us," Jamie told Moira.

"Happily." Moira played for the other side.

"Do you like the bouffant?"

"It's very Kim Novak." The blonde had mesmerized Hitchcock in his film VERTIGO.

"Wasn't she gay?" Jamie asked eying me.

"I think so." Moira played for the other side. She was holding the model's hand. They looked like a nice couple.

If only for happy hour.

"Ah, here's to the bouffant." Jamie raised his glass.

"And Jackie O."

At my age I might think about her once in a while.

After all she was the mother of the modern bouffant.

THE BIRTH OF THE BOUFFANT by Peter Nolan Smith

The bouffant coif supposedly gained popularity in the late-18th Century.

Supposedly Marie Antoinette' coiffeur sought to camouflage the Queen's early balding by upsweeping her thin tresses atop her head to cascade over her ears. The style lost its popularity after the Bourbon Queen's decapitation by the guillotine, however almost two centuries later Jackie Kennedy, JFK's fashionable wife, reincarnated the fashion with the help of her hairdresser Mr. Kenneth.

Everything about Jackie was fabulous in the early 60s and whether they lived in New York or Iowa women across America imitated the First Lady's glamour with a visit to the local hair salon.

The country was soon awash with bouffants with movie stars such as Audrey Hepburn and Kim Novak furthering the cause of the extreme hair-do. Only the nuns at Our Lady of the Foothills rejected the trend with their hair to the skull, although none of their students saw what was under the dimple, so the reverend sisters also might have been sporting bouffants too.

The bouffant died out with the coming of the hippie era. Young women grew their hair long and the style seemed slated for extinction, only to stage several rebirths with the coifs of lead singers of the B-52s and another with the late English singer Amy Winehouse and the actresses in TV Show MADMEN.

Last week ago a woman walked into a New York bar in the East Village. Her bleached blonde hair was piled high on her head. She looked so very 60s. I was sitting with Jamie Parker, who was recently back from Thailand and the 50 year-old ex-con said, "She looks like a 1960s transvestite."

"You don't like the bouffant?" The hair style resurrected my youth and my first yearnings for women instead of girls.

"Not at all, but this Mr. Kenneth who re-invented the hair style for Jackie Kennedy was gay." Jamie smirked at the passing beauty.Her stiletto heels were almost as tall as her hair and we caught the scent of Chanel No.5.

"You have something against gays?" Back in the 60s they were called homos and they were to be feared by young men, unless they were looking for a good time.

"Me, I love gays, but I looked at the bouffant hair style as a strategy gay hairdressers used to make straight men not want to have sex with their wives or girlfriends. It might have turned Kim Novak and Leslie Gore gay." Jamie spoke with no trace of rancor. His first love was drugs.

"I liked the bouffant. Back in 1965 I met a girl from Mattapan at the Oriental Theater. Her name was Jo with dirty blonde hair as stiff as a store mannequin's wig. She was my Kim Novak.

"Figures."

"How does it figure?"

"You're from Boston. Men from Boston love Jackie Kennedy. You probably went to bed jerking off to the First Lady."

"Not that I can remember." Jackie O rode horses and spoke French. Women like her were destined to marry rich regardless of their hairstyle. "I know my place."

"Don't we all." Jamie was in the States to visit his mother. She lived in the Bronx and thought that he was teaching school in Thailand, instead of running the Pigpen A Go-Go featuring fat pretty bar girls and skinny ugly pole dancers. Jamie was a man of the street no matter where he lived on this Earth.

"Easy to know your place when it's only us and them."

The them was the rich. The 'us' was the rest of the world and no bouffant would make a woman Jackie O or Marie Antoinette, except in Thailand, where some of the boys are girls and twice the girl any woman would be, even with a bouffant.

Jackie O would have love them.