Fringe

Fringe (pronounced frinj)

(1) A decorative border of thread, cord, or the like, usually hanging loosely from a raveled edge or separate strip; an edging consisting of hanging threads, tassels etc.

(2) In architecture, engineering, gardening, interior decorating etc, anything resembling or suggesting this (sometimes used loosely).

(3) An outer edge; margin; the periphery.

(4) In political science, something regarded as peripheral, marginal, secondary, or extreme in relation to something else; Those members of a political party, or any social group, holding unorthodox views (famously as the “lunatic fringe”).

(5) In optical physics, one of the alternate light and dark bands produced by the diffraction or interference of light.

(6) In tax law, as “fringe benefit”, a non-cash element of earning treated as income for taxation purposes (sometimes at a concessional rate).

(7) To furnish with or as if with a fringe; to serve as a fringe for, or to be arranged around or along so as to suggest a fringe; to be a fringe.

(8) In hairdressing, a style in which hair sits vertically across the forehead (synonymous with “bangs”, the predominant US form although the latter describes a wider range of cuts and, under the influence of social media, is now widely used).

(9) In botany, the peristome or fringe-like appendage of the capsules of most mosses.

(10) In structured performance art, a series of events conducted in parallel with (though not formerly a part of) an established festival (Edinburgh Fringe; Adelaide Fringe etc).

1325–1375: From the Middle English frenge (ornamental bordering; material for a fringe), from the Old French frenge (thread, strand, fringe, hem, border) (which endures in Modern French as frange), from the Vulgar Latin frimbia (a metathetic variant of the Late Latin plural fimbria (fibers, threads, fringe)), from the Latin fimbriae (fringe) of uncertain origin.  It was related to the German Franse and Danish frynse and came to replace the native Middle English fnæd (fringe), byrd (fringe) & fasel (fringe) from the Old English fæs (fringe) & fnæs (fringe).  As a verb which described “to decorate with a fringe or fringes”, use emerged in the mid-fifteenth century.  The meaning “a border, a boundary, an edge” dates from the 1640s while the figurative sense of “an outer edge, the margin” didn’t come into use until the 1890s although fringe had been an adjective since 1809.  The use of the technical term “fringe benefits” was first recorded in 1952.  Fringe is a noun, verb & adjective, fringed & fringing are verbs and fringeless, fringelike & fringy are adjectives; the noun plural is fringes.

For those seeking an example of the fecundity of the human imagination, Urban Dictionary has a listing of their contributors' suggestions in which fringe is an element including: mini-fringe, fringe fries, Tetris fringe, stoner fringe, wannabe fringe, minge fringe, vagina fringe, fringe of wisdom, fringe sex, clunge fringe, stu fringe, fringed purse, fringe flicker, pube fringe, fringe binge, fanny fringe, block fringe, fringed unicorn, fringe wizzle, chocolate fringe, box fringe, fringe of darkness, fringe sleeper, fucking fringe & grunge fringe.  Especially in those with some anatomical reference, there may be some overlap in meaning but it remains an impressive list.

Slides from the research which identified the Beta-1,3-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase lunatic fringe gene (now called LFNG), an an essential mediator of somite segmentation and patterning.

In the science of genetics, “lunatic fringe” was too tempting to resist. As in many fields in science, the privilege of allocating a name for a gene is granted to whomever discovered it and those working on fruit flies and other creatures concocted, inter alia: Tinman (fruit flies with a mutated Tinman gene do not develop a heart); Casanova (Zebrafish with a mutation in the Casanova gene develops two hearts); INDY (I’m not dead yet (a reference to a line in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail) a mutation in the INDY gene prolongs the lifespan of fruit flies; Cheap Date (fruit flies with a mutation in the Cheap Date gene become highly sensitive to alcohol); Dracula (Zebrafish with a mutated Dracula gene are hyper-sensitive to light and soon die; Sonic Hedgehog (Fruit fly embryos with mutated Sonic hedgehog gene develop spikes that resembles a hedgehog); Pinhead (a fruit fly gene which resembled humans colloquially called "pinheads"); Groucho Marx (a gene in metazoa that induces excess facial bristles); Ken & Barbie (Mutations in Ken and Barbie result in fruit flies without external genitalia; Grim & Reaper (the genes Grim & Reaper regulate the death process (apoptosis) in fruit flies).  Even the names of some of genes discovered in fruit fly (and other non-human) research proved to be controversial because so many were shared with humans and accordingly the Human Genome Organization’s (HUGO) gene naming committee was petitioned to change them.   As part of this linguistic sanitization, three christened during the decoding of the human genome (Lunatic Fringe, Manic Fringe & Radical Fringe) were anonymized respectively as LFNG, MFNG & RFNG.

Lunatic Fringe, Canterbury, England.

In parts of the English-speaking world, it’s not uncommon to find a hairdressing salon called Lunatic Fringe but it’s less common in North America where the preferred term for what in the UK, Australia etc was traditionally called a fringe, is “bangs”.  Under the influence of social media and other cultural exports, the Americanism has spread and bangs is now commonly heard everywhere and it’s proved technically useful for professional hairdressers who often distinguish between the classic fringe and a variety of cuts called bangs (which might be considered partial fringes), typically a cut which involves some strands cut short in front of the face or longer, usually thicker strands at the sides to “frame the face”.  The origin of the use of “bangs” in this context is mysterious, some claiming it was a clipping of the hairdresser’s phrase “bang off” which meant to cut the hair in front of the face short, straight & even while others suggest a link with “bang tail”, a dressage cut done to horsetails for equestrian events where the tail hairs would be cut straight across.

Lindsay Lohan with fringe cut with the alluring “dangling in the eyes” look, known as early as 1875 as "the lunatic fringe" (left), in costume as Cleopatra in Liz & Dick (2012) with straight cut fringe (centre) and with curtain bangs which are layered but not quite a bottleneck (right).

There is art & science associated with bangs because not all variations suit all face shapes and certainly aren’t suitable (or even technically possible) with all types of hair.  Additionally, some really work only if complementary makeup is applied but the core base for the decision is almost always the shape of the face, particularly the curve of the jaw-line and essentially they pivot from four points: above the brows, at eye level, at cheekbone level and at the jaw-line.  As a general principle, the hairdresser’s four point rule for bangs is (1) square or heart-shaped faces look best with something wispier or feathered fringe to add softness, (2) oblong face shapes work well with blunt-cut bangs, (3) round faces can gain the effect of elongation with side-swept or curtain bangs and (4) oval-shaped faces will usually accommodate any bang.  In the jargon of professionals there are curtain bangs, bottleneck bangs, blunt bangs, curly bangs, side-swept bangs, layered bangs, choppy bangs, braided bangs, wispy bangs, wavy bangs, micro bangs, shaggy bangs, piecey bangs, JBF bangs & clip-in bangs.

Ali Lohan (b 1993) photographed with her pregnant sister wearing Sandal-Malvina Fringe Tank Dress (left).  The shoes are Alexandre Birmen Clarita Platforms although, as the pregnancy progresses, the Instagram feed can be expected increasingly to feature sensible and comfortable footwear such as Nike’s Air Vapormax Multicolor sneakers (right).

Fringe “festivals” (Edinburgh Fringe; Adelaide Fringe etc).are events which “piggy-back” on mainstream “official” events (Edinburgh Festival; Adelaide Festival etc).  They began as “pirate events” but often became so popular they really came to be considered part of the event and schedules of both came to be designed in conjunction.  The notion of them being “fringe” referenced (1) their components being exhibited or preformed not in the main performance spaces but in places on the periphery and (2) their content being (allegedly) avant-garde (“edgy” in arty talk) or too controversial to be staged in the main event.

Theodore Roosevelt in fringed jacket with Winchester Model 1876, customized with a half-round octagonal barrel, pistol grip, deluxe checkered wood, case-hardened receiver and a shotgun-style butt.

The “lunatic fringe” is really not a phrase from political science (although not a few academics seem to enjoy using it); and in this context it was coined by a politician and is a favorite in popular journalism.  Although many dictionaries early in the twentieth century are said to have described “lunatic fringe” as “a splendidly prejudicial British phrase, with its suggestion of hair dragged villainously low over the forehead or edging the circumference of the face in the way that magistrates disapprove of”, it seems first to have been used of political matters by Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919; US president 1901-1909) in a letter to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (1850–1924) on 4 November 1913.   In the letter, he wrote: “I have got some very amusing letters from the lunatic fringe. . . . It is extraordinary how they take hold of people who are just a little mad themselves.”

Thereafter, the phrase became widely known and has since been used of extremist groups or individuals with radical or unconventional views.  It’s in a sense a successor to the way “ultra” was earlier used (ultimately as both noun and adjective) as a prefix (ultra-Tory, ultra-revolutionary etc) before emerging in its own right as a “curtailed word”.  In modern use, it’s handy in that it’s politically agnostic: Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) could say of his Democratic Party challenger, Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) that he was “…a candidate that will destroy this country and he may not do it himself. He will be run by a radical fringe group of lunatics that will destroy our country” as effortlessly as earlier Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) could describe the Republican Party’s Tea Party faction as “… a lunatic fringe which the Republican leadership should reign in or else the country would suffer.”  However, although President Roosevelt may have thought he was coining something original, some forty years earlier the phrase had some currency among hairdressers in West Virginia, the Wheeling Daily Register in July 1875 reporting “…lunatic fringe is the name given to the fashion of cropping the hair and letting the ends hang down over the forehead.”

Lindsay Lohan with "lunatic fringe" (left), a lion (centre) in China's Guangzhou Zoo with fringe-cut said to be induced by "high humidity" and a piece (right) by Miguel Castro Freitas from his first collection for Mugler, Paris Fashion Week, October, 2025.

In May 2022, a woman visiting Guangzhou Zoo in China was so taken by the sight of a lion’s mane she posted images to her Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) page.  Xiaohongshu is a Chinese social network and is most often compared with Instagram although the e-commerce focus does seem more overt.  Her posts of the impressively coiffed big cat wasn’t immediately deleted so it may be assumed the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) didn’t deem them a threat to national security.  The lion’s look was so obviously untypical the Xiaohongshu user must have assumed the zoo-keepers were student’s of Lindsay Lohan’s hair styles and speculated, possibly on the basis of her own experience, that “…cutting alone is not sufficient to achieve this look, which would need a combination of washing, cutting, and blow-drying to have this effect.”  Comments on her post mused either the lion was “very docile” or the zoo-keepers were “particularly gutsy”.  Noting the interest, the Guangdong media outlet Viral Press requested a comment from the zoo which issued a statement confirming “…the hairstyle was purely nature’s magic” and a product of “recent days of “high humidity in Guangzhou.”

A fragment from Fashion Feed’s take on Paris Fashion Week, 2025.

Miguel Castro Freitas’s (b 1980) first collection for Mugler was called “Stardust Aphrodite” and the designer described the pieces as “a trilogy of glorified clichés”, the three elements being (1) oversize and bulky, with big fluffy fabrics or shoulder pads, (2) severely tailored with extreme hourglass figures or (3) lightweight, sheer dresses; critics detected some overlap in the use of the motifs.  Although there were a number of nods to Mugler’s historic use of materials in bulk for dramatic effect, the collection otherwise tended to the “less”, one eye catching piece a gown with sparkly silver stars, its straps hung from bare-breasted nipple piercings.  To re-assure those whose toes had curled, critics noted that one was made from “a very lightweight fabric”.  The technique had be seen before, a “nipple grown” the best-remembered thing from the catwalk from one of Mugler’s shows in 1998 and this year’s model was an acknowledged homage but apart from that, it certainly was on-theme, Victoria’s Secret unlikely to see much business generated from those taken with Stardust Aphrodite.

Bang

Bang (pronounced bhang)

(1) A loud, sudden, explosive noise (such as the discharge of a firearm).

(2) A resounding stroke or blow.

(3) In informal, use, a sudden movement, show of energy or instance of something suggesting great value, energy, vitality or spirit (source of many idiomatic forms such as “started with a bang”, “went off with a bang”, “great bang for the buck” etc).

(4) Suddenly and loudly; abruptly or violently.

(5) In figurative use, precisely; directly; right (such as “bang on” or “bang in the middle” (ie exactly correct” or “bang to rights” (caught red-handed; guilty as sin).

(6) In informal use, a sudden or intense pleasure; thrill or excitement (now less common).

(7) In slang, various senses of precision such as “bang off” (instantly; right away) or “bang on” (marvelous; perfect; just right).

(8) In vulgar slang, the act or instance of sexual intercourse (with many variants, the most infamous the gangbang).

(9) In the jargon of mining, civil engineering etc, the physical explosive product.

(10) In the slang of drug users, an injection or other form of dose of a narcotic; a shot of heroin which proved lethal.

(11) In US criminal class clang, to participate in street gang criminal activity.

(12) In the slang of typology & the printing trade, an exclamation point, a variant being the interrobang (a punctuation mark (‽) which merges the question mark (?) and the exclamation mark (!) to indicate a query made as an interjection).

(13) In Irish slang, a strong smell (often used of halitosis (chronic bad breath)).

(14) In regional slang (limited apparently to the New England region in the US), an abrupt left-turn by a road-user (Boston, Massachusetts) or a left, right or U-turn (more generalized); the typical use is “bang a left/right/uey”. The equivalent use in Australia & New Zealand is “hang a left/right/uey” although there a U-turn is known also as a “U-bolt”.

(15) In regional slang (limited apparently to urban areas in Nigeria), to fail an exam.

(16) In mathematics, a factorial (on the basis the factorial of n is often written as n!)

(17) In the jargon of financial markets, rapidly or in high volumes suddenly to sell (an equity, commodity, currency etc), causing prices to fall.

(18) In the jargon of hairdressing, as bangs, a number of variants of the fringe.

(19) In reggae music, an offbeat figure played usually on guitar and piano.

(20) In vulgar slang, to have sexual intercourse with (sometimes with the implication of “without consent”.

(21) To strike or beat resoundingly; to pound; to strike violently or noisily.

(22) To hit or painfully to pump.

(23) To throw or set down roughly; to slam.

1540-1550: From the Middle English bangen, from the Old English bangian or borrowed from the Old Norse banga (to pound, hammer), both from the Proto-Germanic bangōną (to beat, pound), from the primitive Indo-European ben- (to beat, hit, injure).  It was cognate with Scots bang & bung (to strike, bang, hurl, thrash, offend), the Icelandic banga (to pound, hammer), the Old Swedish bånga (to hammer (from which modern Swedish gained banka (to knock, pound, bang), the Danish banke (to beat) & bengel (club), the Low German bangen, & bangeln (to strike, beat) (the German dialect banken may originally have been imitative), the West Frisian bingel & bongel, the Dutch bengel (bell; rascal) and the German Bengel (club) & bungen (to throb, pulsate).  Bang is a noun, verb & adverb, banged is a verb & adjective, banger is a noun, banging is a noun, verb & adjective; the noun plural is bangs.

Of the universe

The origin of the term “Big Bang Theory” (which describes a model accounting for the origin and most of the dynamics of the (present) universe during the last 14 billion years-odd) is traced to a chance remark by English astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) on BBC Radio in 1949 but it wasn’t until the late 1960s it came widely to be used in scientific circles and a few more years before it was part of the common public language.  Hoyle always denied he’d intended to be disparaging of what was then a theory some 30 years old and this most historians came to accept although certainly he was unconvinced of the idea’s soundness and for some decades clung to his preferred “steady state” model of the universe.  The steady state position is sometimes misunderstood as something like “twas ever thus” but is better understood as “constant process”, the crucial difference that while the steady staters held matter constantly was being created as the universe expands, the big bangers believed the distance between the matter which came into existence a fraction of a second after the big bang increased as the universe expanded from its one-time singularity.  Hoyle never quite became a big banger but as the evidence mounted, he modified his model to become what was dubbed “a quasi steady stater” although his increasingly convoluted explanations forcing observations to somehow fit his belief convinced few.  The criticism of Hoyle was he made cosmology into a kind of theology.

Noted golfer Paige Spiranac (b 1993) is active on Instagram and recently posted a “Life update” to her four million followers, advising “I have bangs now”.  Hopefully, she will keep us informed and there will be more to come.  For golfers, she has posted a set of invaluable short clips called Paige Quickies which are guides for both the experienced wishing to hone their techniques and those taking up the sport.  Being highly qualified, she filled one gap in the instructional market with a collection of tips for “busty golfers” (specific weight distribution a significant element as the body pivots when swinging a club).  On Instagram, in less than 24 hours, the clip garnered over 2.6 million views.

Hoyle's use of the term “big bang” while it did graphically emphasise the difference of opinion between the two schools of thought, was unfortunate as a contribution to public understanding because of the connotations of the words  “big” & “bang”, most imagining the origins of the universe as starting with a huge, noisy explosion whereas what was envisaged by the theorists was a sudden “cosmic inflation” (of space), a process which continues and was in the 1990s found to be accelerating although not everywhere equally.  The big bang theory is now the orthodoxy in the mainstream scientific community though some questions remain unanswered including the mystery of why, based on a number of calculations which explain many other things, over 90% of the universe’s matter is “missing” (or at least can’t be observed).  The fudge to “explain” that has been the twin concepts of “dark matter” and “dark energy” which are more “speculative concepts” than a theoretical model and best understood as an elegant way of saying “don’t know”.  There have been a number of suggestions to account for the “missing matter”, the most intriguing being the notion the calculated “matter number” might be too high because of “drag effect” created by the operation of time itself.  Time obviously is important otherwise everything would happen at the same time and who knows what else it does; recently, particle physicists reported having witnessed pinpricks of darkness moving faster than the speed of light without breaking the laws of relativity so there's much still to be understood.

Of cars

Big banger and old banger: John Greenwood (1945-2015) in “Spirit of ’76” Chevrolet Corvette, Le Mans 24 Hour, June 1976 (left) and a despondent Lindsay Lohan with Herbie while in “old banger” state, Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005), the Corvette an “8-banger” and the Beetle a “4-banger”.  The Corvette was powered by a 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) big-block V8 and although forced to retire after a failure in the fuel delivery system, while it was running, nothing in the field could match the mark of 222 mph (354 km/h) it set thundering down the then 6 km (3.7 mile) Mulsanne straight.  In 1976, Mulsanne had yet to be distorted by the silly chicanes added in 1990 at the behest of the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the International Automobile Federation, world sport's dopiest regulatory body)).

With cars, “banger” proved productive.  Because an ICE (internal combustion engine) always includes a “power stroke” (or its equivalence), in which the fuel-air mix explodes (the combustion causing “a bang” which sequentially is the sound from the exhaust system; to aficionados sometimes a pleasing tone, sometimes not), in slang, vehicles came to be described by the cylinder count thus (most frequently “4-banger”, “6-banger” or “8-banger”).  However, a car could also be a “big banger” (one with a large displacement ICE, usually a V8 with the appellation coming from the “big-block” era of the post-war years when Detroit mass-produced engines with pistons the size of paint cans) or an “old banger” (one old, worn out or battered”.  Old banger was synonymous with “clunker”, “beater”, “hooptie”, “jalopy”, “wreck”, “crock”, “shitbox”, “rustbucket” etc and the dubbing came either from the appearance (“banged up” in the sense of being dented or damaged) or the “banging” noise (backfiring, a damaged exhaust system etc) the dilapidated machines emanated.

Of sausages and such

Bangers & Mash by the Daring Gourmet.  Not everyone garnishes their B&M with chopped parsley.

Unrelated to ICEs, a banger could be (1) one who bangs (in any sense (sex, violence etc), (2) the penis (3) a sausage (the use reputedly based originally not on any resemblance to a penis but, dating from the time when they were produced by encasing the contents in the intestine casings of slaughtered animals (often sheep), the combination of excess water in the mix and the impervious skin making them susceptible to exploding if not punctured prior to being cooked), (4) the breasts of a female (and thus usually in the plural) and (5) in popular music a highly rated song (some of which would be enjoyed by (6) headbangers (that subset of music fans who “dance” by violently shaking their heads in time to the music)).

Rolling Stone magazine No.169, September 12, 1974.  Rolling Stone and Playboy magazine in the 1960s & 1970s attracted a large audience of the market segments attractive to advertisers and alongside the content with which both most were associated, they attracted respectable authors to write about politics and interview subjects such as celebrity philosophers and Nazi war criminals.

As well as being a noun plural “Bangs” is also a proper noun as a surname, the most noted being Lester Bangs (1948–1982) who in the late 1960s began to write reviews of popular music, prompted by an advertisement in Rolling Stone magazine inviting reader submissions.  He wouldn’t have thought what he criticized was “pop” and Rolling Stone magazine (first published in 1967) was one of a number of titles that created an ecosystem in which classifications proliferated with clear “hierarchies of respectability” evolving among those who regarded “pop” as a serious musical form and Bangs definitely was one of them; before the mid-1960s, popular music usually wasn’t written about with the tone of reverence afforded to jazz, opera, the avant-garde and such.  Bangs died a drug-related death although not the traditionally “messy” one associated with the field he critiqued.  Having contracted influenza, he was self-medicating with an opioid analgesic and a benzodiazepine; his overdose was ruled “accidental”.

Of hair

In hairdressing, the noun “bangs” is used to describe a number of variants of the fringe (or sections of hair) cut straight across the forehead, the derived verb used as “to bang the hair”.  Sometimes there are “left and right” bangs but even when a style wholly is a conventional fringe the convention is to speak of “bangs”, although hairdressers, especially when constructing something asymmetric, will refer to the “left” or “right” bang.  Although there are on the internet claims the use is based on the notion of a clipped hair “bursting out” (ie “explosively” in a figurative sense and thus based on “bang” in the sense of something sudden), verified evidence confirms “bangs” joined the rich jargon of hairdressing late in the nineteenth century as a clipping (get it?) of “bang-tail”, a term then used for decades in used in equestrian circles to described a horse’s tail being allowed to grow long and then cut (docked) straight across (the painless cut called a “bang-off”).  Apparently with origins in Scotland before spreading south and across the Atlantic, it joined “gee-up” as a phrase with equine roots enjoying a re-purposing for wider use.  The OED cites the first use of “bang” for the cutting of human hair to 1878 and within half-a-decade US newspapers and periodicals had adopted the plural form “bangs” when referring to a straight-across cut of hair on the forehead.  It was in the late 1880s the imaginative use “lunatic fringe” was coined (a century later to become a popular name for hairdressing salons) and “fringe” remained the dominate use in the UK and much of the Commonwealth while the US opted for the punchier “bangs”.  As a tool of US linguistic imperialism, the internet in the twenty-first century did its job and throughout the English-speaking world, bangs now peacefully co-exists with fringe with youth tending to the former.

Takes on Cleopatra with bangs long & short.

Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) in Cleopatra (1963, left) and Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) in Liz & Dick (2012).  Based on period sculptures, it seems likely the queen had curly hair but because of the prevalence of their appearance on women in surviving art from Ancient Egypt, bangs became entrenched in the public’s imagination of Cleopatra and film directors accordingly complied.  While it's true that the look (on men and women) does appear on much surviving imagery from Ancient Egypt it must be remembered that then, as now, public art was not necessarily representative of the appearance of the wider population although it probably did align with that of the elites.  Also, the as the archaeological records make clear, the consistency of style (straight-cut bangs (ie a horizontal fringe) across the forehead with hair apparently perfect (often shoulder-length and symmetrical) which appears dense, geometric, and highly regular was achieved with the use of wigs of human hair, wool, or plant fibres.  Carefully constructed and styled into clearly repeatable forms, the blunt bangs, at least among certain parts of society, must have been an enduring fashion statement.

The “bang” technique with origins in equine grooming is used with ponytails and is called the “straight blunt cut”; for this purpose the only substantive difference between a “pony's tail” and a “ponytail” is scale.

While, whether of human fringes or horses' tails, “bangs” might be a nineteenth century coining, the hair style is as ancient as humanity, the prehistoric origins doubtlessly a simple expedient to keep the hair from dangling in the eyes, the trim presumably a tiresome task in the era before scissors.  From that humble beginning evolved eventually the array of styles now available, at least some of which allegedly have been a political statements of group solidarity.  A fine “brief history of bangs” is maintained by Odele Beauty (their “Rinse Blog” an indispensable source of technical information) and there it’s claimed Cleopatra’s (Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (Κλεοπάτρα Θεά Φιλοπάτωρ (“Cleopatra father-loving goddess” in the Koine Greek); circa 69 BC–circa 10 BC, Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51-30 BC and the last active Hellenistic pharaoh) “famous fringe is apparently a myth” although on the basis of surviving art, it seems likely Ancient Egyptians “wore blunt-cut bang wigs as early as 3000 BC” and whether or not they were the “influencers”, the look spread north to the Greece and Rome of Antiquity, Odele Beauty noting Augustus (Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (known also as Octavianus (Octavian)); 63 BC-14 AD, founder of the Roman Empire (27 BC-476 AD) and first Roman emperor 27 BC-14 AD) “wore his hair combed into a short, forehead-framing fringe, setting a new trend (later dubbed the “Caesar cut”) that future emperors would follow.”  

Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc, 1901), oil on canvas by Albert Lynch (1860–1950).  The short bangs were always present in older paintings of Joan of Arc but it wasn't unusual for modern artists to be influenced by contemporary trends.  Monsieur Lynch left no notes so it's not known if he had in mind the circa 1901 style what of what later would come to be known as a “bloshie young woman”.  Joan of Arc (circa 1412–1431) sometimes was depicted bangs blunt and not but artists had her variously blonde or brunette and with hair wild or coiffed and their images may reflect what male artists thought such a woman should look like.

Surviving European art from the Medieval to Modernity confirms bangs seem never to have gone away and the emergence of the word late in the 1800s suggests they must then have been a quite a thing.  By then, bangs had survived seventeenth century disapprobation of the church, priests finding fashion trends symbols of ungodly vanity and inappropriate for modest, pious women.  However what cemented bangs in their cultural place seems to have been the social ripples from World War I (1914-1918), the so called flappers of the “roaring twenties” taking to them as an adjunct to the other forms of fashion minimalism they adopted as earlier, restrictive conventions were shrugged-off.  Although it had earlier also enjoyed some less pleasing connotations, “flapper” in the sense of the “bright young things” of the era is thought a re-adaptation of the nineteenth century Northern English slang meaning “teen-age girl” and it referenced the hair not routinely being “put-up” in the adult manner and instead kept in plaits or braids, left to “flap about” as she moved.  The 1920s re-cycling of “flapper” retained the connection with “lively young girl” and had nothing to do with hair; bangs had been around for millennia before the flappers but they made them one of their signature looks.  Since the 1920s, trends have ebbed and flowed in the cyclical way fashion works and bangs variously have been softened, blunted, gained wispy curls (not to be confused with the dreaded “fly-away bits”), bulked up as “bumper bangs”, trimmed back to be the “baby bangs” of pixie cuts and evolved in the twin streams of the “curtain bangs” which seductively would drape over the eyes and the dramatic, “set piece installations” made famous by Farrah Fawcett (1947-2009) which for years provided hairdressers with a solid income stream as young ladies everywhere demanded the same thing.

Although it’s not uncommon to see headlines like “Bangs are back”, that’s misleading because they never went away; like hairdressers, headline writers have their own methods of operation.  It would be more accurate were the sites to headline which bangs are trending and that’s now a global thing because it matters not whether a trend is noted as happening in Seoul, Sydney, Seattle and Santiago because on the internet everything is happening at the same time and looks now wax, wane or die in global unison and while the imaginative can doubtless describe some variants, beyond than the basic, self-explanatory forms (short, straight, blunt), there are really five distinct bangs:

Air bangs (seen here in conjunction with long side bangs also favored by goths).

(1) Air bangs are characterized by being light and sparse.  First defined as an element of K-beauty (the aesthetic of South Korea which encompasses hair, clothes, cosmetics music) etc these are known also as “Korean bangs” but their alternative name (see-through bangs) better describes the look.  Despite the name, they are not ideally suited to those with thin or wispy hair and like just about every style, work best with thick locks which provide a better contrast and more scope for styling.  Professional stylists caution those at home crafting air bangs from a conventional fringe to do the process slowly because it's easy to over-estimate to much need to be cut (specialized tools are available).  One advantage of air bangs compare with a straight cut is that in using unequal-length strands, that aspect of precision is avoided but the look does work best if there's a perception of consistency in the spacing. 

Baby bangs: On Pinterest, this was described as a “statement cut” and on that the content provider didn't expand but one suggested statement might be: “admission of guilt”.  Still, the bangs do mean attention is drawn to her lovely sanpaku eyes so there's that.

(2) Baby bangs are short, straight or blunt-edged bangs which are used usually in coordination with the shorter flavours of bob, the reason for that being that if paired with more voluminous cuts, the bangs tend to “get lost” or worse, look like mistakes.  Micro bangs are also “bangs writ small” but differ in that the look is used with styles other than bobs and is identified by being ; not usually considered conventionally attractive, it appears more on catwalks and in photo-shoots than on the street although some do (unwisely) pick up the look.  Baby bangs really suit only a tiny sub-set of the population (most of whom are aged under 15) and should be thought the Pontiac Aztec (2001-2005) of hair-styles in that they're functional, offer good visibility and undeniably are distinctive but are ugly.  All that can be said for both is that on the inside, looking out, one doesn't have to see them. 

Lindsay Lohan with curtain bangs, done in the “twin-hemispheric” or “double polyspheric mode”.

(3) Curtain bangs are long bangs, parted in the centre (although there have been asymmetric interpretations) and designed to resemble a two-drape curtain tied at the side, partially to reveal the face.  The leading edges of the most artfully styled sit just at the point where the eye color is visible and devoted fashionistas wear them with a “curtain reveal top” in which the curve of the garment matches that of the bangs, something which can be as hard to achieve as it sounds.  With a change of as little as a half inch (12.5 mm), stylists can use curtain bangs to change the perception of the shape of a face, the most popular visual trick being elongation, making a “round” face appear something more sought (heart, diamond or inverted triangle).  Combined with skilfully applied makeup, the transformation can be dramatic. 

An emo selfie with classic emo bangs.  The expression is emoesque but the vibrancy of the colors on clothes and bandana is untypical, emos tending more to goth-flavored looks with black and gray although purple seems now less of an emo thing.

(4) Emo bangs are less concerned with shape and symmetry, the important thing being the sweep of hair from the forehead fully covering at least one eye and maybe partially obscuring the other.  Amateur psychiatrists and other students of the emo (a distinct sub-set of humanity) probably have their own thoughts on whether the emo’s goal is to limit what they see of the world or to limit how much others see of them.  Emos are however pragmatic and although their have the honor of an eponymous style, they're also sometimes seen with various bangs. 

There seems little to suggest bangs are a reliable marker of TERFdom and those wishing to assert where they stand on TERFness should probably don an appropriate T-shirt.

(5) Not all agree TERF bangs should be thought a distinct class but they are short, straight, blunt-edged bangs seen usually with shorter cuts (not necessarily bobs).  The term is said to have originated on the microblogging platform Tumblr (which vies with MySpace for as the social media site to have suffered the greatest loss between its high-valuation and most recent sale) when in 2014 a user posted the suggestion such bangs seemingly were exclusive to TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists).  That obviously was impressionistic and it was never clarified whether the suggestion was intended humorously but if not, it’s an example of a gaboso (pronounced gah-boh-so).  A gaboso (Generalized Association Based On Single Observation) (also as the verb gabosoed) is the act of taking one identifiable feature of someone or something and using it as the definitional reference for a group; it ties in with logical fallacies.  While it’s doubtful many professional hairdressers have TERF bangs in the lexicon, it seems novel enough to warrant a mention.

Kammback

Kammback (pronounced cam-bak)

A motif in automotive styling (originally dictated by wind tunnel findings during research into aerodynamic properties) in which rear of the car slopes downwards before being abruptly cut off to terminate in a vertical or near-vertical surface.  The things are known also as the Kamm tail (K-tail).

1950s (the actual design first appearing in 1938): The construct was Kamm + back.  The surname Kamm (related to Kamp) was of Germanic or Jewish (Ashkenazic) origin and translates literally from the German as “comb”.  The German comb was from the Middle High German kamb, kambe, kam & kamme and the Yiddish kam (comb).  Genealogists conclude Kamm was probably an metonymic occupational surname for someone who either made or sold combs, a common tool used for grooming or for textile work such as carding or combing wool.  There’s also the possibility the name of some Kamm clans could have been of topographic origin because in German, Kamm can also mean “ridge” or “crest” of a hill, mountain or some other elevation; it could thus have referred to someone who lived near such a geographical feature.  Less likely is that some arose from nicknames based on physical features or personal characteristics with Kamm used to describe someone with hair resembling a comb or someone with a sharp or distinctive personality.  The surname emerged in the Middle Ages, a time when hereditary family names were becoming more common in German-speaking regions and in addition to the presence in Germany, exists at various scale in areas with a historic patter of German migration (notably the north-eastern US and South Australia.

Back was from the Middle English bak, from the Old English bæc, from the Proto-West Germanic bak, from the Proto-Germanic bakam & baką which may be related to the primitive Indo-European beg- (to bend).  In other European languages there was also the Middle Low German bak (back), from the Old Saxon bak, the West Frisian bekling (chair back), the Old High German bah and the Swedish and Norwegian bak; there are no documented connections outside the Germanic and in other modern Germanic languages the cognates mostly have been ousted in this sense by words akin to Modern English ridge such as Danish ryg and the German Rücken.  At one time, many Indo-European languages may have distinguished the horizontal back of an animal or geographic formation such as a mountain range from the upright back of a human while in some cases a modern word for "back" may come from a word related to “spine” such as the Italian schiena or Russian spina or “shoulder”, the examples including the Spanish espalda & Polish plecy.

Tail was from the Middle English tail, tayl & teil (hindmost part of an animal), from the Old English tægl & tægel (tail), from the Proto-Germanic taglaz & taglą (hair, fibre; hair of a tail) (source also of the Old High German zagal, the German Zagel (tail), the dialectal German Zagel (penis), the Old Norse tagl (horse's tail) and the Gothic tagl (hair), from the primitive Indo-European doklos, from a suffixed form of the roots dok & dek- (something long and thin (referring to such things as fringe, lock of hair, horsetail & to tear, fray, shred)), source also of the Old Irish dual (lock of hair) and the Sanskrit dasah (fringe, wick).  It was cognate with the Scots tail (tail), the Dutch teil (tail, haulm, blade), the Low German Tagel (twisted scourge, whip of thongs and ropes; end of a rope), the dialectal Danish tavl (hair of the tail), the Swedish tagel (hair of the tail, horsehair), the Norwegian tagl (tail), the Icelandic tagl (tail, horsetail, ponytail), and the Gothic tagl (hair). In some senses, development appears to have been by a generalization of the usual opposition between head and tail.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) suggest the primary sense, at least among the Germanic tongues, seems to have been "hairy tail," or just "tuft of hair," but already in Old English the word was applied to the hairless "tails" of worms, bees etc.  The alternative suggestion is that the notion common to all is that of the "long, slender shape."  It served as an adjective from the 1670s.  A long obsolete Old English word for tail was steort.  Kammback is a noun; the noun plural is kammbacks.  No lexicographer seems to have listed Kammbackesque, Kammbacklike or Kammbackish as standard adjectives but, given the extent of the deviances from Professor Kamm's original which are still labelled as “Kammbacks”, they might be useful forms.  Who wouldn't want to be able to use terms like the comparative “more Kammbackish” and the superlative “most Kammbackish”?

Some notable Kammbacks

The Kammback (also known as the Kamm tail) was named after German engineer & aerodynamicist Professor Wunibald Kamm (1893–1966) who during the 1930s pioneered the shape, his work assisted greatly by some chicanery within the Nazi military-industrial complex which enabled the FKFA (Forschungsinstituts für Kraftfahrwesen und Fahrzeugmotoren Stuttgart (Research Institute of Automotive Engineering and Vehicle Engines Stuttgart) institute he established in 1930s to secure funding to construct a full-sized wind tunnel equipped with a two-part steel treadmill in the floor and an 8.8 metre (350 inch) diameter axial fan, able to drive air at up to 400 km/h (250 mph).  What the two concentric floor turntables allowed was that as well as enabling turbulence to be studied from the side on the running steel belt, slip angles were also possible.   At the time, it was the most modern structure of its kind on the planet, the very existence of which was owed to the priority afforded by the Nazis to re-armament, especially the development of modern airframes, most of the money eventually coming from the Reichs-Luftfahrt-Ministerium (RLM, the State Air Ministry).

A classic Kammback on a 1970 Fiat 850 Coupé (1965-1973), one of the last of the generation of post-war mainstream rear-engined cars built in Western Europe.

While Professor’s Kamm’s work on automobile shapes continued, increasingly the facility became focused on military contracts, contributing to an extraordinary range of novel aircraft designs, some revolutionary and most of which would never reach production.  All of this ceased in July 1944 when the facility was severely damaged in air-raids by Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command, a costly campaign in which one mission incurred a loss-ration of 20% and it wasn’t until the late 1940s that reconstruction began after it was acquired by Daimler-Benz AG which enlarged and modernized the machinery, the early fruits including the 300 SL (the W194, first gullwing coupé) which won the 1952 Le Mans 24 hour race and the W196R “streamliner” Grand Prix race cars which created such a sensation in 1954.  Although he wasn’t part of “Operation Paperclip” (the US project which secured (by various means including the military “smuggling” them into the country despite many being wanted by those investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity) Professor Kann was acknowledged as one of the world’s leading authorities on turbulence and between 1947-1953 was part of the team working at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.  Some of what was undertaken then remains classified but it can be assumed it was all related to military projects and what would later become the space program.

The Kammback which really wasn't: 1976 Chevrolet Vega Kammback.

One often misunderstood aspect of the Kamm tail is that the aerodynamic benefits are realized only if the flat, vertical surface created was no more than about 50% of the total area of the vehicle (as viewed directly from the back).  That’s why even designs which don’t conform to the requirements are often casually referred to as “Kammbacks” and in the US, Chevrolet were cynically opportunistic when the Vega range (1970-1977) included what was nothing more than a two-door station wagon (estate), it was named “Vega Kammback”.  Actually, even the existence of the thing in the US was unusual because at that stage, General Motors (GM) really “didn’t like” small station wagons but many critics did agree the Kammback was the best looking of the Vega’s body-styles.

2023 Ford Mustang coupe (left) and convertible (right).  Three of the Mean Girls (2004) ensemble (Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried (b 1985)), Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert (b 1982)) & Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan (b 1986)) in 2023 filmed a commercial for Pepsi Corporation, one of the props a 2023 Ford Mustang convertible.  So ubiquitous has the Kammback become that its now unnoticed (except in its absence), one quirk being that when convertibles are created from such a base, many of the aerodynamic advantages are lost, one reason why (all else being equal which is rarely the case) a convertible will tend to have slightly inferior performance and slightly higher fuel consumption.

The knowledge gained from aero-engine development during World War I (1914-1918) meant even the mainstream engines of the 1920s were developing much more power so the speeds of cars were rising.  Some intrepid types also took advantage of the number of huge, powerful aero-engines being sold cheaply as “war surplus”, installing them is powerboats and racing cars, resulting in some fast machines and not a few fatalities.  However, it became clear the law of diminishing returns applied as speeds rose because while an increase of 100 horsepower might make possible an increase in top speed from 100 to 120 mph, another 100 hp might yield only another 10 mph; wind resistance increasing too much for the power to overcome.  Thus the interest in aerodynamics, then usually called “streamlining” something which, coincidently, produced some memorable art deco designs buy the engineers were interested in higher speeds and lower fuel consumption for a given quantum of energy input (fuel consumption).

2014 Shelby American Cobra 427 50^th Anniversary Edition in aluminium (left) and 1964 Shelby Daytona Coupe (right).

The AC Shelby Cobra (1962-1967) was small, light and powerful which made it an instant success on the race tracks but, ruggedly handsome though it was, its aerodynamics limited the top speed and on the some fast, open European circuits it gave away as much as 50 km/h (30 mph) to less powerful but more streamlined machines.  More power wasn’t the solution but a new Kammback body was and the Daytona duly won its class in the 1965 World Sports Car Championship.  All used the 289 cubic in (4.7 litre) Ford Windsor V8 although one briefly was fitted with a 390 (6.5) FE V8 and the planned 427 (7.0) version (CSX3027, the so-called “Daytona Super Coupe”) was never completed until sold by Shelby some 17 years later in a “rummage sale”.  The Kammback Daytona was the work of US designer Pete Brock (b 1936) and in a macabre coincidence, his namesake, the Australian racing driver Peter Brock (1945–2006) was killed while competing (in retirement) in a replica Daytona Coupe during the now defunct Targa West (2005-2021) in Western Australia.

Before the Kammback, the state of the aerodynamic art was the airship-like "streamliner" which, although it probably didn't cross the engineers' minds, owed something to the train of a bride's gown.  1939 Lincoln Zephyr V12 Coupe (left) and 1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K (W29) Special Roadster (originally delivered to Mohammad Zahir Shah (1914–2007; the last King of Afghanistan 1933-1973) (right).

What soon became clear was that the shape of the dirigible (better known as the “airship” or “blimp”) was close to ideal and needed to be tweaked only by honing it into a “teardrop shape” with a rounded nose, extending to a long, tapered tail, a shape which in the 1930s caught the imagination of designers who rendered some memorable designs although the most famous were impractical and inefficient in terms of packaging, thus suitable only for the then small market niche which sought speed.  It was to try to gain the benefits of streamlining in a shape more suitable for mass production that Professor Kamm and others took their slide-rules to the wind tunnel began to experiment.  The solution which emerged was to terminate the lovely, long flowing roofline with an abrupt end at a surface which was either vertical or close to it, an unexpected benefit being an improvement in high-speed stability, obviating the need for (a usually central) stabilizing fin (a la an aircraft’s tail).  By 1938, BMW had produced a car with a Kammback and although World War II (1938-1945) interrupted development by the late 1940s the shape had begun to appear in showrooms and in little more than ten years it was common in specially bodied racing cars.  That didn’t mean the allure of the teardrop went away because the aerodynamicists (who now had both access to bigger wind tunnels in which higher speeds could be tested and the novelty of computers which could process previously unimaginable quantities of data) could still prove ultimate slipperiness could be attained only with the teardrop.

Pre-Kammback & non-Kammback.  Porsche 917LH (Langheck (long tail)) at Arnage, Le Mans 24 hour, 1969 (left) and 2020 McLaren Speedtail (right).  Such things are now possible.

It was this which convinced Porsche to use such a tail on their revolutionary 917 in 1969 and having encountered no stability issues on their test track, sent the car to the circuits where it proved as fast as expected.  Unfortunately, the size of the Porsche test facility limited the 917 to 290 km/h (180 mph) and when on the long straights of some European circuits when speeds exceeded 320 km/h, it was clear the thing was lethally unstable.  Although the drivers killed at the wheel of the early 917s didn’t die at such velocities, it was understood it would be only a matter of time so the rear bodywork was redesigned.  When in 2018 McLaren returned to the teardrop for the “Speedtail” (a car which sacrificed just about anything not mandated by law in the quest for top speed), it was able to achieve a safe (it’s a relative term) 400 km/h (250 mph) because advances in aerodynamics, computing, materials & hydraulics had made such things possible although the packaging inefficiencies remained, something not significant for the target market.