page_title: Regular haircut
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Regular haircut / Origins
caption_attribution_description: English: B/W etching of John Ellis Wool.
context_page_description: A regular haircut is a men's and boys' hairstyle that has hair long enough to comb on top, a defined or deconstructed side part, and a short, semi-short, medium, long, or extra long back and sides. The style is also known by other names including taper cut, regular taper cut, side-part and standard haircut; as well as short back and sides, business-man cut and professional cut, subject to varying national, regional, and local interpretations of the specific taper for the back and sides.
context_section_description: The short back and sides dates back to the Roman empire, as the regulation haircut for legionaries. Besides preventing the spread of lice, short hair and a clean shaven face prevented the enemy from grabbing a soldier by the beard. By the first century AD, Roman hairstyles were imitated by non-Roman subjects who admired the civilisation that Rome brought. Examples include the Gallo-Romans and Romanized Jews like Saint Paul seeking to distinguish themselves from traditionalists for whom hair cutting was forbidden.
  The regular haircut, worn with a long beard, made a comeback during the Renaissance due to European men's newfound fascination with rediscovered classical artefacts. It was revived for a second time during the Regency era of c.1810-1830 as dandies abandoned the impractical and expensive powdered wigs in response to William Pitt the Younger's hair powder tax.
  During the Gay Nineties, the regular haircut gradually replaced the longer hair and muttonchop sideburns fashionable since the 1840s until, by 1910, it had become the norm for professional men. An extreme version known as the undercut was regulation for British and German soldiers during World War I and World War II. The regular haircut remained fashionable in America throughout the 1950s and 1960s due to its association with the upper class Ivy League fashion, and underwent a second revival among the early 1980s preppy subculture in reaction to the androgynous shag and mod haircuts of the 1970s. In the present day, the short back and sides continues to be worn by many professional men, while the related undercut has been appropriated by the hipster subculture.
caption: American general John Ellis Wool with regular haircut, 1825.