Margaret Vinci Heldt, 1918-2016

                                   

Cookie is going to admit: this has been a horrible couple of days for the LGBT community amd the American people.  

So today, let us also add to our plate of grief,  by observing the passing of a Hair Style Goddess, Margaret Vinci Heldt, who has died at the age of 98.

According to the June 14, 2016 Washinton Post, Heldt is the credited inventor of the Beehive hair style.

Born in 1918, Margaret Vinci Heldt decided that she wanted to be a hairdresser at age seven.  When she went for Board examination, her mother sacrificed her long tresses for her daughters future.  While her father wept for his wife's lost locks, Mrs. Heldt said her mother took (her) hand and said " 'my child, I want you to know that you are one of God's chosen people' - in Italian it sounds wonderful."

The Beehive was invented as a challenge for the "hair design"  for the future decade made by Modern Beauty Shop magazine in 1959 and the result was published in February 1960.  Mrs. Heldt said she was inspired by a black Fez that she kept her combs in.  Her Design was Fez shaped soft cone on the top of her styling model head.  At the last minute Heldt included a stylized "bee" shaped clip on the back of the design.  The magazine endowed the design with the name Beehive.  And an icon was born.

                                   

Over the years she was taken aback at how large the beehive became in the name of fasion.  "The became more like hornet's nests."  But she also acknowledged that the style, which soared in popularity partly becuase if it was wrapped carefully before bed, it could last a week plus intact, "wouldn't have been possible without hairspray."

Her advice to her clients with the style?

"I don't care what your husband does from the neck down, but I don't want him touching you from the neck up."

Mrs. Heldt, who was widowed in 1998 was survived by her children, grand children and great grandchildren.