35 Years of Prince’s Hairstyles in 15 Glorious Seconds!

Any­one who’s suf­fered through the hell of grow­ing out a short style or spent a pre-awards show after­noon get­ting sewn into exten­sions will appre­ci­ate the brisk pace of Lon­don-based illus­tra­tor Gary Card’s “Prince Hair Chart” slideshow.

It’s only 15 sec­onds long, but seri­ous­ly, can you name anoth­er Prince with coif­fures amor­phous enough to mer­it such pro­longed gaze?  Cer­tain­ly, not Charles, or even the com­pelling­ly flame-haired Har­ry.

As this chrono­log­i­cal speed-through of 35 years of hair­dos attests, musi­cal chameleon Prince (aka  Love Sym­bol #2, Prince Rogers Nel­son) has nev­er shied from stand­ing out in a crowd. Thir­ty-six looks shim­mer and writhe atop his laven­der pate, as he stares cooly ahead, more man­tis than Medusa.

Not all of them worked. If we were play­ing Who Wore It Bet­ter, I’d have to go with Liza Minel­li (1985) and  Jen­nifer Anis­ton (1990), but the slideshow is rich­er (and a cou­ple of frac­tions of a sec­ond longer) due to such silli­ness.

Doubt­less Prince will have rearranged his locks before the doves can cry again. His lat­est look, as evi­denced by a recent guest cameo oppo­site Zooey Deschanel on the TV com­e­dy, ‘New Girl’, is a return to roots, a la 1978.

via Kot­tke

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of sev­en books, and cre­ator of the award win­ning East Vil­lage Inky zine. Prince tweet­ed about Gary Card’s hair­do overview… so per­haps it’s in the realm of pos­si­bil­i­ty that he’ll be the next to squawk in her direc­tion  @AyunHalliday