The German Who Invented the Beatle Haircut: Jürgen Vollmer

Who invented the mop-top haircut? Jürgen Vollmer said he came up with the now-famous straight-down, ear-touching, and forehead-covering hairstyle—which he calls “the pony"—one day in 1955. “It was an act of rebellion; it wasn't that I thought it looked beautiful,” Vollmer said. "So when The Beatles came in ’60 for the first time [and played] at the Kaiserkeller, they saw me with this hairdo. Klaus has often said that I was the first [to have it]. Klaus never had the pony; it looked too feminine for him—that's what he said. He wore his hair to the side. And Stuart never had a pony; he also had it to the side.”

Vollmer was also wearing his hair more to the side by October 1961. At that time, he was living in Paris, and it was there, Vollmer said, that Lennon and McCartney paid him a visit and asked him to cut their hair like they used to. Vollmer said he cut McCartney’s hair first.

“I didn’t want them to change."I thought they looked great,” he recalled. “For me, as a photographer, I loved their hair—the Elvis [Presley] hair. But they said, ‘We want it like you had in Hamburg.’ That’s the thing: I didn’t even have the haircut anymore.”

Citations:
• https://www.goldminemag.com/features/origin-of-beatles-mop-top-style-remains-a-hairy-issue
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Vollmer
• https://www.genesis-publications.com/book/0904351564/from-hamburg-to-hollywood
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Gilbey_(designer)
• https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-beatles-where-did-you-get-that-hair/

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