Monica Potts on the world of high-end D.C. salons:
A politician’s hair is, pardon the expression, an extension of her politics.
When housewives across the country began imitating Sarah Palin‘s signature updo, it was seen as support for the self-styled populist. The New York Times interviewed Palin’s hairdresser in Alaska, who said, “We would talk about pedicures and manicures and moose and politics, all while Sarah was having foils in her hair and holding my baby on her lap.” The article described the rural salon as “Steel Magnolias on the tundra.”
A hairstyle can also communicate a distinct lack of populism, as the furor over John Edwards‘ $400 haircut proved. Or it can signal a political evolution: Hillary Clinton was scorned as a rube for sporting a classic pageboy throughout the 1990s, but as a presidential candidate she was asked at a New Hampshire town hall, “How do you do it? How do you keep up … and who does your hair?”
