Synonymous with the 1920s – although it was appearing at least a decade earlier amongst the fashionable and avant-garde – the chin-length bob marked a new era for what was dubbed the New Woman. No longer weighed down by the waist-length hair demanded of women in the west for centuries, short cuts were perfect for the changing lifestyle available to a new generation; working in factories, participating in sports, riding bikes and driving cars, dancing to fast-paced music… all of it was infinitely easier with a swinging bob than with a heavily-pinned bouffant updo. Bobs have remained a powerful cut ever since; from 1960s wash-and-go styles popularised by Sassoon to Victoria Beckham’s iconic Pob. It’s a sharp, smart, sexy length that still maintains the power to shock in a society that has been slow to move on from ideas of how women should look.